Berlin/ Basel (Switz­er­land) — A Gleiss Lutz team has advi­sed the global phar­maceu­ti­cal and diagno­stics group Roche on the acqui­si­tion of all shares in the Berlin-based TIB Molbiol Group, an expert in mole­cu­lar diagno­stics. The closing of the tran­sac­tion is subject to custo­mary closing condi­ti­ons and is expec­ted to occur in the fourth quar­ter of 2021. The acqui­si­tion expands Roche’s broad port­fo­lio in mole­cu­lar diagno­stics solu­ti­ons with a wide range of assays for infec­tious dise­a­ses, such as SARS-CoV2 variants.

Roche is a global company in the rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment of medi­ci­nes and diagno­stics. In addi­tion, Roche is the world’s largest biotech company with drugs for onco­logy, immu­no­logy, infec­tious dise­a­ses, ophthal­mo­logy and dise­a­ses of the
Central nervous system.

Foun­ded in 1896 and head­quar­te­red in Basel, Switz­er­land, the Roche Group opera­tes in more than 100 count­ries and employed more than 100,000 people world­wide in 2020. In 2020, Roche inves­ted CHF 12.2 billion in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment and gene­ra­ted sales of CHF 58.3 billion.

The biotech­no­logy company TIB Molbiol was foun­ded in 1990 and has been supp­ly­ing the inter­na­tio­nal market with diagno­stic and rese­arch reagents ever since. As a manu­fac­tu­rer of custom oligo­nu­cleo­ti­des, the company is a part­ner in the deve­lo­p­ment of mole­cu­lar diagno­stics and has a broad port­fo­lio of diagno­stic assays. The Berlin-based company has sites in the USA, Colom­bia, Italy, Spain and Australia.

Dr. Ruben Perren and Dr. Felix Kobel from Roche’s legal depart­ment were respon­si­ble for the transaction.

The follo­wing Gleiss Lutz team acted for Roche in the transaction:
Dr. Alex­an­der Schwarz (Part­ner, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Martin Viciano Gofferje (Part­ner, Berlin, both Lead), Dr. Fabian Mumme (Düssel­dorf), Dr. Chris­toph Meiss­ner (Berlin), Fried­rich Baum­gär­tel, Kai Zimutta (both Düssel­dorf, all M&A), Dr. Alex­an­der Molle (Part­ner), Jan Hinrichs, Dr. Felix Müller (all IP/IT), Dr. Enno Burk (Coun­sel, Health­care, all Berlin), Dr. Johann Wagner (Part­ner, Tax, Hamburg), Dr. Jacob von Andreae (Part­ner), Aylin Hoffs, Matthias Hahn, Lenn­art Förs­ter (all Public Commer­cial Law, Düssel­dorf), Dr. Ingo Brin­ker (Part­ner), Dr. Iris Bene­dikt-Bucken­leib (Coun­sel, both Anti­trust, Munich), Dr. Stefan Linge­mann (Part­ner), Jose­fine Chakrab­arti (both Berlin), Dr. Simona Kreis (Hamburg, all Labor Law), Konrad Discher (Coun­sel, Real Estate, Frankfurt).

Gleiss Lutz has advi­sed Roche on seve­ral tran­sac­tions in the past, inclu­ding the sale of Roche Diagno­stics IT Solu­ti­ons GmbH to Nexus AG.