Just a few days after the announcement that Roche would buy for $44 billion the share in Genentech that it didn't already own, the company has announced plans to acquire other companies, albeit for smaller price tags.

Firstly  Roche has announced plans to acquire Mirus Bio Corporation, a privately-owned US company based in Madison, Wisconsin, that focuses on the discovery and development of innovative nucleic acid based technologies, including a proprietary RNAi (Ribonucleic Acid interference) delivery platform. Under the terms of the agreement, Roche will fully acquire Mirus for USD 125 million and will maintain an RNAi research site in Madison. Mirus' Dynamic PolyConjugates technology is being refined as an enabling platform for siRNA therapeutics. In gene therapy, the company is developing novel human therapeutics enabled by its proprietary Pathway IV hydrodynamic delivery platform. The lead programme is a treatment for muscular dystrophy, which is being developed collaboratively with Transgene S.A. of Strasbourg, France.

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As if all this wasn't enough, Roche have also aqnnounced that it will acquire the US-based biotechnology companyin an all-cash transaction at a price of approximately C$191 million. ARIUS is the developer of a proprietary antibody platform called FunctionFIRST, which rapidly identifies and selects antibodies based on their functional ability to affect disease before progressing into clinical development. The FunctionFIRST platform will allow Roche to further strengthen its developmental portfolio, initially within the areas of oncology and inflammatory diseases where this new technique offers potentially broad therapeutic applications.

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