Ventana breaks down under Roche's 3,4 billion bid

By margarita Snegireva. Roche Holding AG raised its bid up to $3.4 billion to take over Ventana and thus overcame its resistance.

Photo: Ventana breaks down under Roche's 3,4 billion bid

Roche said on Tuesday it would increase the tender offer for all outstanding Ventana Medical Systems Inc shares to $89.50 per share in cash, from $75 per share.

Ventana had repeatedly rebuffed Roche's original bid, calling the offer grossly inadequate, but agreed to open its books to the Swiss company in November.

F. Hoffmann–La Roche, Ltd. is a Swiss global health-care company which operates world-wide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. It belongs to the Roche Holding AG .

The headquarters are in Basel and the company has many sites around the world - including: Nutley, Palo Alto, Pleasanton, Branchburg, Indianapolis, Florence in the US, Welwyn Garden City in the UK, Mannheim, Penzberg in Germany, and Shanghai in China.

The company also owns a majority of the American biotechnology company Genentech and the Japanese biotechnology company Chugai Pharmaceuticals.

Roche Holding AG (ticker ROC.S) is listed on the London-based virt-x stock exchange (virt-x is a company of the SWX Swiss Exchange). Roche's revenues during fiscal year 2005 were $28.6 billion (2005, 35.5bn CHF). Descendants of the founding Hoffmann and Oeri families own half of the company. Swiss pharma company Novartis owns 33% of the company (as of 2005).