deals, Life Sciences, Diagnostics

Exact Sciences to Sequenom: No Deal

Ryan McBride 1/12/09

Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS), a Marlborough, MA-based maker of cancer diagnostics, is searching for a better deal than the one it was offered last week by San Diego-based diagnostics firm Sequenom (NASDAQ:SQNM). This afternoon, Exact said its board of directors unanimously rejected Sequenom’s bid to acquire the company for $1.50 per share worth of Sequenom common stock.

Exact—which ended September 2008 with $6 million in cash and has been seeking strategic alternatives such as a buyout—says its board decided that the company should find a deal that would bring greater value to shareholders than Sequenom’s all-stock buyout offer, valued at $41 million. Exact’s common stock closed at $1.52 per share today, up 53.5 percent from its 99-cent closing price last Friday when Sequenom announced its offer.

Luke wrote last week that Sequenom’s bid to acquire Exact follows a banner 2008, when the value of Sequenom’s stock more than doubled and it reported 100-percent accuracy in a study of its prenatal test to screen fetuses for Down’s Syndrome. It appears that Sequenom, which hopes to expand its diagnostic offerings with Exact’s stool-based DNA test for colon cancer, may have to dig deeper into its pockets to win over Exact’s board of directors.

Ryan McBride is Xconomy's correspondent. You can reach him at rmcbride@xconomy.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Ryan_McBride.