Roche acquires Seragon Pharmaceuticals and their portfolio in breast cancer

Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Seragon Pharmaceuticals, which was spun out of Aragon Pharmaceuticals in August 2013 when the latter was bought by Johnson & Johnson for as much as $1 billion. Roche will make an upfront cash payment of $725 million, plus additional contingent payments of up to $1 billion based on achievement of certain predetermined milestones. US based Seragon Pharmaceuticals has a portfolio of investigational next-generation oral selective estrogen receptor degraders (SERDs) for the treatment of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. These SERDs are designed to both block and also eliminate the estrogen receptor from the cell altogether. This may improve the approach to treating hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, and potentially other cancers driven by the estrogen receptor. Roche already makes a number of drugs that combat certain aggressive types of breast cancer linked to raised levels of a protein called HER 2. The most prominent is the blockbuster Herceptin treatment, which earned Roche $6.8 billionor around a sixth of its revenues - in 2013.