Roche CEO Severin Schwan is in a deal-making mood, and he has some serious cash to gamble on new acquisitions that fit the pharma giant's overarching strategy for developing drugs that rely on a diagnostic test to identify a target patient population.
In an interview with Bloomberg's Naomi Kresge, Schwan outlined Roche's acquisition strategy, highlighting an appetite for new drugs and diagnostic technologies that could be picked up in the range of $100 million to $320 million. And a mid-size buyout along the lines of Roche's $3.4 billion Ventana buy makes sense as well.
Roche has invested billions in its diagnostics arm to make sure that the pharma giant can position its therapeutics as carefully targeted and effective, making an argument for coverage that payers of all stripes would have a hard time ignoring. As PricewaterhouseCoopers noted in a recent report on the in vitro diagnostics business, Roche is a global leader in the field and an active buyer of new technologies.
"We see the synergies between pharma and diagnostics coming to life," Schwan told Bloomberg.
- here's the story from Bloomberg