Mirus’ delivery platform will add to Roche’s research activities.
Roche reports that it will pay $125 million for Mirus Bio to leverage the company’s RNAi delivery platform. The offer comes a day after Roche said that it would shell out $43.7 billion for Genentech.
Roche plans to divest Mirus’ transfection reagents franchise as a standalone business that will be called Mirus Bio.
In 2007, Roche stepped up its interest in RNAi therapeutics through a deal with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals’ that was valued at up to $1 billion. Roche gained a nonexclusive license to Alnylam’s RNAi technology and bought the firm’s research facility in Kulmbach, Germany. This is now Roche’s Centre of Excellence for RNAi therapeutic research.
“The pioneering work in RNAi delivery by the scientists at Mirus, together with our Centre of Excellence for RNAi research in Kulmbach puts Roche at the forefront of bringing this whole new class of treatment to patients who suffer from difficult to treat diseases,” says Lee E. Babiss, global head of Roche pharma research.
The transaction is expected to close during the second half of this year.
