Invitae Acquires Personalized Oncology Testing Company Generosity, Scores $1.2 B Financing

Rare Daily Staff

Genetic testing company Invitae said it will acquire Generosity to bolster its personalized oncology testing, and at the same time, a small group of investors, led by Softbank subsidiary SB Management, is investing $1.2 billion in convertible senior notes to support the company’s future growth initiatives.

“Invitae’s mission is to deliver genetic information to improve healthcare for billions of people at all stages of life. With the support of our long-term shareholders, we’re creating the platform to support the routine use of genetics in mainstream medicine to result in better healthcare for everyone,” said Sean George, co-founder and CEO of Invitae. “This investment will help us continue to fuel our growth, including expanding our platform, services, and menu through both in-house development and the addition of complementary companies and technologies as we work to build a differentiated platform uniquely capable of driving the transition to personalized medicine.”

Toward that end, Invitae entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Genosity, a genomics company offering innovative software and laboratory solutions to enable development and deployment of complex sequencing-based tests. The acquisition brings Genosity’s specialized capabilities onto the Invitae platform to accelerate the time to market and decentralization of Invitae’s personalized oncology offerings, including somatic and germline offerings poised to help transform how cancer is diagnosed, treated and monitored.

“Each individual cancer is unique. The way we diagnose and treat it must be as well,” said Robert Nussbaum, chief medical officer of Invitae. “Our goal is to move as quickly as we can toward the day where each cancer patient receives timely, comprehensive genetic information that is used to guide their care from diagnosis to monitoring for disease recurrence. Together with Genosity, we believe our combined novel capabilities and capacity will help us reach that day sooner for patients around the globe.”

Genosity has built an industry-leading suite of highly specialized capabilities designed to support the use of next generation sequencing in oncology development and clinical care, ranging from basic research to clinical testing for regulated studies. The company currently works with Invitae on a number of projects and clinical trials. Becoming a part of Invitae is expected to provide important advantages for the development and launch of Invitae’s oncology products, which include three devices under development that have received breakthrough device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including the capacity, speed, and efficiency required to serve mainstream medicine cost effectively both with central laboratory services and decentralized kitted products.

“Our laboratory services, end-to-end software solutions and data management platform are an ideal fit as Invitae develops best-in-class options for MRD-based cancer monitoring,” said Robert Daber, president and chief technology officer of Genosity. “In Invitae we have found a like-minded partner focused on making genomics more affordable and accessible worldwide.”

Under the terms of their agreement, Invitae will acquire Genosity for approximately $200 million, consisting of approximately $120 million in cash and $80 million in shares of Invitae common stock. The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, is expected to close in the second quarter, subject to customary closing conditions. In connection with the transaction, Invitae will grant restricted stock units having a value of up to $15 million to certain continuing employees of Genosity.

Photo: Sean George, co-founder and CEO of Invitae