Roche in $1.5 bn deal to buy Poseida Therapeutics

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said on Tuesday it agreed to buy US biopharma firm Poseida Therapeutics for $1.5 billion (1.4 billion euros)—but Roche shares dipped over a disappointing study on a key lung cancer treatment.

Roche, the world’s number-one oncology group, will offer Poseida shareholders $9.0 per share and add a further $4.0 per share by way of a non-tradeable certificate to acquire the San Diego, California-based company.

The deal, designed to put Roche at the forefront of donor-derived off-the-shelf cell therapies, is due to close in early 2025.

“This price does not seem excessive,” Marcel Brand, analyst at Zurich Kantonalbank, commented.

The boards of directors of both companies unanimously approved the deal for Poseida, whose shares had closed on Monday at $2.73.

Poseida Therapeutics’ portfolio notably includes customized cell therapies for hematological cancers, solid tumors and auto-immune diseases.

The US firm offers “chimeric antigen receptor” (CAR-T) innovative therapies, involving taking cells from a patient’s immune system and genetically modifying them in order to fight diseases.

Roche noted the acquisition builds on an existing partnership between the two companies following a 2022 collaboration and license agreement.

Roche shares meanwhile were down almost 1.5 percent mid-session as it emerged that a phase III study of an immunotherapy treatment showed it had failed to improve survival rates beyond that of Roche’s own existing medicine for advanced lung cancer, Tecentriq.

In a statement, Roche said a combination of the drug, tiragolumab, with Tecentriq tested on 534 patients, had not brought an improved performance over Tecentriq on its own.

“Expectations for tiragolumab had already declined sharply,” said Brand, noting that Roche had already suffered a setback in July for treating lung cancer using the drug combination with chemotherapy.

The study results are to be formally presented next year.

© 2024 AFP