Firm is paying a 170% premium over yesterday’s closing price.
Laboratory Corporation of America intends to buy Monogram Biosciences in a deal worth approximately $106.7 million. The company thus gains established HIV companion diagnostics and cancer tests in development.
LabCorp is willing to pay $4.55 per share, almost three times yesterday’s closing price of $1.68. Monogram stock skyrocketed to open trading today at $4.47.
Monogram Biosciences provides companion diagnostics like the Trofile® assay, which identifies patients who are eligible for the CCR5 class of HIV drugs including Pfizer’s Selzentry. Monogram’s PhenoSense® and PhenoSense GT® HIV tests measure individual patient viral drug resistance.
Additionally, Monogram’s VeraTag™ technology has been used to develop a means to assess HER-2 status in tissue samples. Multiple tests are in development for measuring a variety of protein markers that may have clinical utility to help guide treatment decisions across a range of cancer drugs.
The closing of the acquisition is expected in the third quarter. The transaction is expected to be approximately $0.12 dilutive to LabCorp’s 2009 earnings per share (EPS) and slightly accretive to 2010 EPS.
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