Roche snares 454's sequencing tech in buyout

Roche is buying 454 Life Sciences, a subsidiary of CuraGen, for about $155 million. The deal calls for $140 million in cash and $14.9 million in stock options. CuraGen said it agreed to the sale in order to gain some liquidity as it pushed several experimental cancer therapies to market. For Roche, the deal marks an endorsement of 454's sequencing technology. Roche and 454 signed a collaboration pact in May of 2005 which designated Roche Diagnostics as the worldwide distributor of the Genome Sequencer systems and associated reagents to all markets with the exception of regulated diagnostics.

- here's the release
- check out the AP report on the deal

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