Roche — sur­prise — de­lays $4.3B Spark buy­out again as reg­u­la­tors hov­er

Roche has yet again de­layed their Spark buy­out.

The Swiss gi­ant ex­tend­ed the win­dow on the $4.3 bil­lion gene ther­a­py ac­qui­si­tion through No­vem­ber 25th. It is de­lay #8 for a deal first an­nounced in Feb­ru­ary.

Roche said the de­lay was to give UK and US reg­u­la­tors more time to re­view the ac­qui­si­tion. The Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion staff re­view­ing the deal re­port­ed­ly rec­om­mend­ed ap­proval last week, months af­ter a rare sec­ond in­for­ma­tion re­quest some an­a­lysts thought could au­gur a di­vesti­ture de­mand. But a rec­om­men­da­tion is not an of­fi­cial ap­proval, and across the At­lantic, UK Com­pe­ti­tion and Mar­kets Au­thor­i­ty is not due to an­nounce its Phase I de­ci­sion un­til De­cem­ber 16.

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