Roche to Acquire ARIUS to Gain Access to new Screening Platform for Antibody Therapeutics

Roche and ARIUS Research Inc. have announced that the two companies have signed a definitive agreement for Roche to acquire ARIUS in an all-cash transaction at a price of approximately C$191 million.

ARIUS is the developer of a proprietary antibody platform called FunctionFIRST, which 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.

“ARIUS’ promising platform and early pipeline of new antibody candidates represent an excellent fit with our own progressing research in the fields of cancer and immunology,” said Lee Babiss, Head of Global Research at Roche. “The FunctionFIRST approach provides us with a large library of antibodies from which we can identify the best new drug candidates for the development of clinically differentiated medicines.”