Roche acquires the outstanding shares of Foundation Medicine for $2.4bn

Pharmaceutical giant Roche has announced that it is set to acquire the outstanding shares of Foundation Medicine’s common stock not already owned by Roche for $2.4bn.

Foundation Medicine (FMI) is dedicated to a transformation in cancer care in which treatment is informed by a deep understanding of the genomic changes that contribute to each patient's unique cancer.

Offering a full suite of comprehensive genomic profiling assays to identify the molecular alterations in a patient's cancer and match them with relevant targeted therapies, immunotherapies and clinical trials, FMI aims to improve day-to-day care for patients.

Daniel O’Day, CEO Roche Pharmaceuticals, said, “This is important to our personalised healthcare strategy as we believe molecular insights and the broad availability of high quality comprehensive genomic profiling are key enablers for the development of, and access to, new cancer treatments.”

“Foundation Medicine and Roche share the philosophy that every cancer patient should have access to personalised care informed by validated molecular information,” added Troy Cox, Chief Executive Officer for FMI.

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“Joining forces with Roche as an independent operating company allows Foundation Medicine to continue its collaboration with Roche, as well as our biopharma partners, to drive ubiquitous access to CGP testing and innovative data services.”

Roche is the world’s largest biotech company, with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, immunology, infectious diseases, ophthalmology and diseases of the central nervous system. The company is also the world leader in in vitro diagnostics and tissue-based cancer diagnostics, and a frontrunner in diabetes management.

The news follows on from Roche’s acquisition of healthcare start-up Flatiron Health for $1.9bn, in order to accelerate cancer research and improve patient care. Its platform enables cancer researchers and care providers to learn from the experience of each patient to further the development of new treatments.

“As a leading technology company in oncology, Flatiron Health is best positioned to provide the technology and data analytics infrastructure needed not only for Roche, but for oncology research and development efforts across the entire industry, O’Day commented back in March.