Fresh de­lay for $4.3B Roche/Spark deal trig­gers an­a­lyst con­cerns about gene ther­a­py M&A

Roche CEO Sev­erin Schwan may have pre­pared the staff at Spark for the fifth de­lay of its $4.3 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion — adding a few months of cush­ion and push­ing the dead­line as far as April 30, 2020 — but that’s not stop­ping an­a­lysts from be­com­ing se­ri­ous­ly con­cerned.

The FTC’s dragged on in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which is hold­ing up the deal, points to some­thing big­ger than Spark or Roche, Mani Foroohar of SVB Leerink told Bloomberg. It sends a wor­ry­ing sig­nal to any buy­ers look­ing to make a move in gene ther­a­py M&A.

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