Il­lu­mi­na forks out $1.2B to buy ri­val Pa­cif­ic Bio­sciences, plac­ing long and short-read DNA tech un­der the same roof

Il­lu­mi­na $ILMN is con­sol­i­dat­ing its pole po­si­tion in the gene se­quenc­ing mar­ket by ac­quir­ing small­er ri­val Pa­cif­ic Bio­sciences $PACB in a $1.2 bil­lion all cash deal, the com­pa­nies said on Thurs­day.

Al­though Il­lu­mi­na is pay­ing a 70% pre­mi­um, it’s less than half the share price at PacBio’s 2009 IPO, which raised $200 mil­lion on the promise of its long-read tech­nol­o­gy as a bet­ter, more ac­cu­rate plat­form for se­quenc­ing DNA than the short-read method em­ployed by Il­lu­mi­na.

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