HONG KONG – Privately held Wugen Inc. of St. Louis has inked an exclusive deal with Shanghai-based Alpha Biopharma Ltd. to manufacture, develop and commercialize allogeneic cell products in Asia.

A new multilateral working group could bring deeper scrutiny to biopharma mergers, both past and future. The group, made up of competition experts from Canada, the EU, U.K. and U.S., is taking on the job of identifying fresh approaches to analyze and address the competitive concerns raised by biopharma M&As.

Roche Holding AG will acquire Genmark Diagnostics Inc. for $24.05 per share in cash for a total of $1.8 billion on a fully diluted basis. The transaction will give Basel, Switzerland-based Roche access to Genmark’s molecular diagnostics portfolio. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021. The price represents a 43% premium on the Carlsbad, Calif.-headquartered diagnostics company’s share price as of Feb. 10, prior to media speculation about a potential acquisition.

Intec Pharma Ltd. is merging with privately held Decoy Biosystems Inc. and the combined company will continue advancing Decoy’s immunotherapy technology for treating a variety of tumors and chronic viral infections.

Less than six years after acquiring Cordis Corp. from Johnson & Johnson, Cardinal Health Inc. is selling the troubled cardiovascular device manufacturer to private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC for roughly $1 billion. Shares of the medical products and drugs distributor (NYSE:CAH) were up 2.93% to $57.35 at close on Friday.

Having rung the bell in phase II last summer, Ovid Therapeutics Inc. and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. signed a pact giving the latter global rights to develop and commercialize soticlestat, a first-in-class inhibitor of cholesterol 24-hydroxylase for the treatment of developmental and epileptic encephalopathies including Dravet syndrome (DS) and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS).

Lured by what Amgen Inc. CEO Bob Bradway called a "compelling opportunity" to strengthen the Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based company's oncology portfolio and support its international expansion strategy, Amgen on March 4 moved to buy South San Francisco-based Five Prime Therapeutics Inc. for $38 per share, or about $1.9 billion.

Five years after its initial investment in Maverick Therapeutics Inc., Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. is exercising its option to buy the privately held company for a pre-negotiated up-front payment plus development and regulatory milestones of up to $525 million.