US biotechnology company Chiron (Emeryville, CA) has agreed to buy PathoGenesis (Seattle, WA) for around $700 million in an all-cash deal that provides Chiron with revenue from a high-growth product and strengthens its infectious disease pipeline. Chiron already has around $1.5 billion in assets, and the deal brings it PathoGenesis's inhaled antibiotic tobramycin, which will become a lead product in Chiron's anti-infectives portfolio. Furthermore, Chiron gains around 275 staff, world-class expertise in bacterial genomics (PathoGenesis has just sequenced Pseudomonas), and a rich R&D pipeline. Although PathoGenesis was in the rare position of having brought a product to market, a second product launch was a long way off and the company was not financially able to acquire a company with products closer to market.
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Fletcher, L. Chiron buys PathoGenesis. Nat Biotechnol 18, 1023 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/80137
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/80137