Biotech firm Illumina, Inc. and rival Pacific Biosciences have announced that they have inked a deal for Illumina to acquire Pacific Biosciences in an all-cash transaction, at a fixed price of $8 per Pacific Biosciences share. Apparently, the price is a 71% premium to weighted average share price of Pacific’s 30 trading day volume as on October 31, at approx. $1.2 billion enterprise value on a fully diluted basis.
Illumina will supposedly be able to deliver novel innovations and integrated workflows with the acquisition of Pacific Biosciences. This acquisition would bring the best of both technologies to assist clinicians in offering new tests economically and researchers in advancing their discoveries faster.
President and CEO of Illumina, Francis deSouza, said that unmatched accuracy of Pacific Biosciences mirrors short-read sequencing of Illumina and combining the two will assist in reaching more applications. It will also accelerate the pace of genomic discovery and bolster Illumina’s innovation engine.
Mr. deSouza mentioned that the persistent quest of Pacific Biosciences for improving sequencing accuracy and lowering the cost, simultaneously, emphasizes on the potential of long-reads to expand sequencing to new applications and customers.
CEO of Pacific Biosciences, Michael Hunkapiller, Ph.D., stated that Illumina continuously makes the use of sequencing accessible to everyone at a fast pace and thousands of researchers will have direct access to this technology through this combination.
Hunkapiller further said that both the companies have shared values and a commitment to innovation. Once the complementary sequencing technology of the two companies is integrated, it will offer a new standard of understanding and insight to customers, opening new frontiers of genomic utility, he added.
The board of directors of Pacific Biosciences and Illumina have approved the agreement and the transaction is subjected to shareholders’ approval, besides applicable regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Illumina anticipates the transaction to be completed in mid-2019.
