Roche buying Spark Therapeutics (ONCE) for $4.3 billion

Roche is buying U.S.-based gene therapy specialist Spark Therapeutics for $4.3 billion after developments in this area convinced the Swiss drugmaker to “step up”, Chief Executive Severin Schwan said on Monday.

Roche will pay $114.50 per share for Spark for a portfolio that includes a blindness treatment that has U.S. and European approval and other projects for hemophilia and neurodegenerative disorders like Huntington’s disease. Philadelphia-based Spark’s shares are up about 30 percent this year. The U.S.-company’s stock tumbled last year after two of 12 patients showed an unfavorable immune response when treated with a higher dose of Spark’s haemophilia therapy SPK-8011.

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