Is Roche Bullying Genentech?
Genentech is arguably biotech’s greatest story till date. The San Francisco, Calif. based company was founded in 1976 as a partnership between a biochemist and a venture capitalist that seeded Genentech with knowledge on both the science and business sides of what was a fledgling industry at the time. Genentech now does about $12 billion in sales annually and it has struck gold with some of its blockbuster drugs such as Avastin and Tarceva (both treat various forms of cancer). But what is the main thing that Genentech has that traditional chemical-based big pharma companies don’t? A promising pipeline of drugs under development. And that pipeline is what Roche is eyeing as it made an offer to buyout the rest of Genentech that it doesn’t already own, on Sunday evening. Is Genentech going to be forced into a deal?
