Roche acquires Santaris to expand in RNA-targeting medicines

Roche announced that it will acquire Santaris Pharma, a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Denmark. Roche will make an upfront cash payment of USD 250 million to Santaris Pharma shareholders and make additional payments of up to USD 200 million based on certain milestones. targeting therapeutics. This new class of medicines has the potential to address difficult to treat diseases in a range of therapeutic areas. The acquisition is expected to close in August 2014. Santaris Pharma uses its Locked Nucleic Acid platform and tissue-targeting expertise to pioneer next-generation antisense product candidates. Santaris Pharma is developing LNA therapeutics that influence the production or activity of select RNA targets to address diseases that are difficult-to-treat.