Basel, 22 April 2021 – Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) and GenMark Diagnostics, Inc. today announced that Roche’s wholly owned subsidiary Geronimo Acquisition Corp. has accepted for payment all shares validly tendered and not validly withdrawn pursuant to its tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of GenMark Diagnostics, Inc. (NASDAQ: GNMK) at a price of USD 24.05 per share in cash. The tender offer expired at 12:00 midnight, Eastern Time, at the end of the day on 21 April 2021 and was not extended.
Roche has been advised by Citibank, N.A., the depositary for the tender offer, that a total of approximately 61,201,761 shares of GenMark’s common stock were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn in the tender offer (excluding shares tendered by notice of guaranteed delivery for which certificates have not yet been “received”), which represent approximately 82.89% of the total number of shares of GenMark’s common stock outstanding.
Later today, Roche intends to complete the acquisition of GenMark through a merger of Geronimo Acquisition Corp. with and into GenMark without a vote or meeting of GenMark’s stockholders. In the merger, all shares of GenMark not owned by GenMark, Roche or Roche’s wholly owned subsidiaries (other than shares as to which appraisal rights have been validly exercised under Delaware law) will be converted into the right to receive the same cash consideration per share, less any applicable withholding taxes, as was paid in the tender offer. Following completion of the merger, GenMark will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Roche, and GenMark’s shares will cease to be traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market.
“We are excited about this important milestone, as this acquisition will support our long-lasting commitment to help control antibiotic resistance and infectious diseases, which are a leading cause of death globally,” said Thomas Schinecker, CEO Roche Diagnostics. “The addition of GenMark Diagnostics’ proprietary multiplex technology, which is designed to detect multiple pathogens from a single patient sample, will broaden our best-in-class molecular diagnostics portfolio to help make lifesaving information available to healthcare providers quickly to improve patient outcomes.”
