Roche in two multi-million acquisitions in the US and Canada

Pharma company Roche based in Basel, Switzerland is expected to shell out US$125m (Euro 80m) on the acquisition of a privately-owned US company specialising in the discovery and development of innovative nucleic acid based technologies, including a proprietary RNAi delivery platform.

As part of the purchase of Mirus Roche will maintain an RNAi research site in Winconsin where the company is based. In addition, Mirus' transfection reagents business will be divested into a standalone business to be known as Mirus Bio LLC. Employees will be offered a transition into their respective business unit.

Roche's mission is to find novel solutions for patients who suffer from difficult to treat diseases. RNAi therapeutics provides the capabilities to target complex diseases such as cancer, respiratory or metabolic disorders. And Mirus' delivery platform provides an innovative way of effectively getting RNAi therapeutics to specific disease.

Lee E. Babiss, global head of Roche Pharma Research, said: "Our global research team has made great strides in advancing RNAi therapeutics, and with our new colleagues in Madison we will now bolster those efforts. The technology brought by Mirus, together with additional technologies, will bring us closer to creating fully enabled RNAi therapeutics."

In 2007, Roche allied with US-based company Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and bought its European research site in Kulmbach, Germany. This site houses Roche's Centre of Excellence for RNAi therapeutic research.

Closing of the transaction is subject to standard conditions. Completion is expected during the second half of 2008.

Meanwhile, Roche has started the process of acquiring biotech business ARIUS to gain access to new screening platform for antibody therapeutics

The all-cash transaction is for C$191m ( € 119m). ARIUS is the developer of a proprietary antibody platform called FunctionFIRST, which rapidly identifies and selects antibodies based on their functional ability to affect disease before progressing into clinical development. The FunctionFIRST platform will allow Roche to further strengthen its developmental portfolio, initially within the areas of oncology and inflammatory diseases where this new technique offers potentially broad therapeutic applications.

Lee Babiss, head of global research at Roche, said: "The FunctionFIRST approach provides us with a large library of antibodies from which we can identify the best new drug candidates for the development of clinically differentiated medicines."

The acquisition, which is also subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008. It is the intention that the ARIUS site will remain open and serve as a centre for the discovery of innovative biotherapeutics, initially focusing on the areas of Oncology and Inflammation.