Illumina Advances Talks to Acquire Healthcare Start-up Grail

Healthcare start-up, GRAIL Inc, is the latest biotech company to file for U.S. IPO (Initial Public Offering) on Sept 9, 2020. It is a cancer-testing company headquartered in Menlo Park, California, developing products to detect multiple cancer types. Illumina initially funded GRAIL, now other deal may happen nearly.

By T. Chakraborty, Ph.D.

Illumina Inc., a leading genomics company, headquartered in San Diego, California is in talks to acquire California-based cancer-detection start-up Grail Inc. If the acquisition is successful, Grail is set to gain more than the $6 billion valuations that it raised from its prior fundraisings, according to sources who spoke on anonymity as the details haven’t been finalized. The sources further added that the companies can announce a deal as early as this week, although no final decision has been made and the deal could easily fall apart.

Illumina has a market value of roughly $49 billion based on the shares which initially rose and fell by approximately 4.8% today at the New York trading. The acquisition of Grail would be Illumina’s largest-ever deal as per data assembled by Bloomberg. Representatives for both Grail and Illumina didn’t respond to any requests for comment.

Illumina and Grail already have pre-established ties as Grail was a former Illumina subsidiary, which is why Illumina still holds 10% of its stock. Backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, Grail, a private company, filed for public offering this month and is estimated to have raised more than $1.9 billion, according to regulatory filings.

Related Article: Cancer-Screening Startup GRAIL Files for IPO

Illumina is responsible for developing, manufacturing, and marketing integrated systems to analyze genetic variations and biological functions. They are also the only supplier of the sequencers that Grail uses for performing genomic tests.

Related Article: The Profound Impact of Duplex Sequencing: An Interview with Jesse Salk, CEO, TwinStrand Biosciences

References:

1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-16/illumina-said-to-be-in-talks-to-buy-health-care-startup-grail

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Author

Tulip Chakraborty