By Morgan
Drug giant Merck & Co. agreed Monday to acquire ArQule, a cancer-treating biopharmaceutical company, for $20 per share in cash for a total equity value of around $2.7 billion.
The news sent ArQule’s stock up more than 100 percent, to $19.67 per share, in early Monday trading.
Merck stock sagged just 0.2 percent, to $88.70 per share, immediately after the announcement.
“With this agreement, ArQule’s pipeline will benefit from Merck’s vast capabilities and determined engagement to benefit the patients who we have always strived to serve,” Paolo Pucci, CEO of Burlington, Mass.-based ArQule, said in a statement.
Dr. Roger M. Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories in Kenilworth, NJ, added that “ArQule’s focus on precision medicine has yielded multiple clinical-stage oral kinase inhibitors that have novel and important properties.”
