Roche agrees to buy Santaris Pharma
To expand its discovery and development of RNA-targeting medicines
Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Roche has agreed to acquire Santaris Pharma, a privately owned biopharmaceutical company based near Copenhagen, Denmark.
Santaris Pharma has pioneered Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) technology, which has contributed to an emerging era of RNA-targeting therapeutics. This new class of medicines has the potential to address difficult to treat diseases in a range of therapeutic areas, Roche said.
Roche will pay US$250m upfront and an additional $200m on the achievement of certain milestones.
The acquisition is expected to close this month.
Roche plans to maintain Santaris Pharma’s operations in Denmark, where the site will be renamed Roche Innovation Centre Copenhagen.
'Today there are many disease targets that are very challenging or even impossible to reach with small molecules or antibodies,' said John Reed, Head of Roche Pharma Research and Early Development. 'We believe the LNA platform provides the means to efficiently discover and develop an important new class of medicines that may address the significant needs of patients across multiple therapeutic areas.'
Donald deBethizy, President and CEO of Santaris Pharma, said the two companies 'have complementary capabilities that will help us realise breakthrough medicines'.
He added that the acquisition combines Santaris Pharma’s next-generation antisense technology and LNA expertise with Roche’s expertise in disease biology, chemistry, drug safety, drug formulation, delivery, and development.
The deal is the third acquisition by the Basel-based company in recent months. It bought the US biotech group Seragon Pharmaceuticals for up to $1.7bn last month, and the US gene-sequencing group Genia for up to $350m in June.
