NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Roche said this week that it has commenced a cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of Foundation Medicine, at a price of $137 per share. The offer follows Roche's announcement last month that it plans to acquire all the remaining outstanding Foundation shares that it did not already own. Unless extended, the tender offer period will expire at midnight, US Eastern time, on July 30. Following the tender offer, Roche will acquire all remaining Foundation shares at the same price through a second-step merger. The closing of the transaction is expected in the second half of this year.
Bio-Rad Laboratories announced this week that it has signed a comarketing agreement with Bruker for their foodborne pathogen detection and confirmation workflow solutions. Bio-Rad and Bruker each develop, manufacture, and sell products and analytical instruments that are used in food microbiology laboratories. The companies plan to comarket Bio-Rad's RAPID’chromogenic media, which is used to screen food products for the presence of pathogenic bacteria, with Bruker's MALDI Biotyper, which is used for confirmation and identification of the organisms.
During its annual general meeting this week, Sygnis changed its name to Expedeon. The firm's CEO and CSO, Heikki Lanckriet, said that the name change aligns the corporate face of the company with its customer facing brands, including those in the genomics, proteomics, and immunology markets.
ACT Genomics said this week that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Bumrungrad International Hospital (BIH) to offer genomic diagnostic services to patients in Thailand. ACT utilizes NGS technology to determine the mutational landscape of patients' tumors and analyzes the data with a proprietary bioinformatics pipeline and database, in order to provide clinicians and cancer patients with help making personalized treatment decisions. Through this deal, ACT and BIH said they are aiming to provide cancer patients in Thailand with precision therapy options.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb.