Roche to buy US biotech firm InterMune for $8.3 bln

Roche Holding AG has agreed to buy US biotech company InterMune Inc for $8.3 billion in cash, helping the world's leading maker of cancer drugs expand into the treatment of rare or incurable diseases. Roche's efforts to produce successful non-cancer drugs from its own labs have been mixed, with setbacks in recent years for experimental drugs against heart disease, diabetes and schizophrenia. The Swiss drugmaker already markets Pulmozyme for cystic fibrosis and Xolair for severe asthma in the United States and has other experimental respiratory products in clinical development, including another severe asthma drug called lebrikizumab. The InterMune deal brings it a promising new drug, pirfenidone, for treating a progressive and ultimately fatal scarring condition of the lungs. Pirfenidone is approved for so-called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in Europe and Canada, and is undergoing US regulatory review. Roche said on Sunday it would pay $74.00 a share through a tender offer for InterMune, representing a premium of 38 per cent to the closing price on Aug. 22 and a 63 per cent premium over Aug. 12 when takeover speculation around the stock began to circulate, according to Reuters.