US: Roche extends US$4.3B Spark deal…again

Roche and Spark Therapeutics announced that Roche has extended the offering period of its previously announced tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Spark. 

The offer was extended to provide additional time for the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to complete their previously disclosed reviews of Roche’s pending acquisition of Spark. The parties remain committed to the transaction and are working cooperatively and expeditiously with the FTC and the CMA.

The companies had hoped to combine Roche, which makes the hemophilia treatment Hemlibra among many other drugs, with Spark, one of several biotech companies developing a gene therapy hemophilia cure among its projects, by last spring.

The US$4.3 billion sale, first announced in February, was the biggest payout for a gene therapy company since doctors at research hospitals including Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania began gene therapy trials in the 1990s.

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