Vertex Pharmaceuticals to acquire Aurora Biosciences in $592 million deal

Vertex Pharmaceuticals has entered into an agreement to acquire AuroraBiosciences Corp in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at approximately $592 million. The firms said that the deal will unite Aurora's "industry-leading assay development, screening and cell biology capabilities" with Vertex' drug discovery expertise, "creating a comprehensive, scalable platform for systematically accelerating drug candidate output in target-rich gene families."

The merger is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2001, and Aurora will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vertex. Based on the closing price of the latter's stock on April 27, the fixed exchange ratio prices Aurora's shares at $24.34 apiece, which represents a 44% premium on its closing price on the same day.

Joshua Boger, Vertex's chief executive, said that by integrating Aurora's capabilities within his company's chemogenomics platform, "we believe we will be able to rapidly expand research into major new gene families." He added that Aurora's proteomics and assay development expertise is broadly applicable in Vertex' clinical programs, "and will enable us to more rapidly establish the therapeutic profile of our development-stage drug candidates."