Firm is paying a 170% premium over yesterday’s closing price.

Laboratory Corporation of America intends to buy Monogram Biosciences in a deal worth approximately $106.7 million. The company thus gains established HIV companion diagnostics and cancer tests in development.

LabCorp is willing to pay $4.55 per share, almost three times yesterday’s closing price of $1.68. Monogram stock skyrocketed to open trading today at $4.47.

Monogram Biosciences provides companion diagnostics like the Trofile® assay, which identifies patients who are eligible for the CCR5 class of HIV drugs including Pfizer’s Selzentry. Monogram’s PhenoSense® and PhenoSense GT® HIV tests measure individual patient viral drug resistance.

Additionally, Monogram’s VeraTag™ technology has been used to develop a means to assess HER-2 status in tissue samples. Multiple tests are in development for measuring a variety of protein markers that may have clinical utility to help guide treatment decisions across a range of cancer drugs.

The closing of the acquisition is expected in the third quarter. The transaction is expected to be approximately $0.12 dilutive to LabCorp’s 2009 earnings per share (EPS) and slightly accretive to 2010 EPS.


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Related News

Pfizer to Extend Use of Patient Selection Technology from Monogram (May 18, 2009)
LabCorp Signs On to Develop Diagnostics Related to Vanda’s Schizophrenia Drug (June 5, 2008)
Monogram to Assist Progenics with Advancement of Early-Stage HIV Therapy (Apr. 1, 2008)
Avexa to Use Monogram’s Assays in HIV Drug R&D (Mar. 10, 2008)
LabCorp to Commercialize Lung Cancer Detection Device with Right’s from Duke University (Jan. 17, 2008)

 

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