Roche acquires Spark Therapeutics and with it Luxturna for treatment of biallelic RPE 65 mutation associated retinal dystrophy

Roche and Spark Therapeutics, Inc.announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement for Roche to fully acquire Spark Therapeutics at a price of US$ 114.50 per share in an all-cash transaction. This corresponds to a total transaction value of approximately US$ 4.3 billion on a fully diluted basis. This price represents a premium of approximately 122% to Spark Therapeutics� closing price on 22 February 2019 and a premium of approximately 19% to Spark Therapeutics� 52 week high share price on 9 July 2018. The merger agreement has been unanimously approved by the boards of Spark Therapeutics and Roche. Spark Therapeutics� lead clinical asset is SPK 8011, a novel gene therapy for the treatment of haemophilia A, which is expected to start Phase III in 2019. Spark Therapeutics also has SPK 8016 in a phase 1/II trial aimed at addressing the haemophilia A inhibitor population. Additionally, Spark Therapeutics was the first company to receive FDA approval for a gene therapy for a genetic disease in 2017. Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), a one-time gene therapy product indicated for the treatment of patients with confirmed biallelic RPE65 mutation-associated retinal dystrophy is currently marketed in the US by Spark Therapeutics. The European Commission granted marketing authorisation for Luxturna in 2018. Spark Therapeutics� additional clinical assets include: SPK 9001, an investigational gene therapy for the potential treatment of haemophilia B in Phase III and SPK-7001 for choroideremia in Phase 1/II. The company is also developing SPK-3006 for Pompe disease and SPK 1001 for CLN2 disease (a form of Batten disease) which are expected to be ready for clinical development in 2019, as well as additional preclinical programmes for Huntington's disease and Stargardt disease.