The Day In Review: Merck & Co., Inc. Buys Sirna Therapeutics, Inc. For $1.1 Billion

October 30, 2006 – Merck will acquire Sirna, a company that specializes in RNA interference, for $1.1 billion; Qiagen will buy Genaco Biomedical for $22 million in cash and 125,000 shares of restricted Qiagen stock; a hepatitis C drug candidate from Peregrine delivered positive results in a Phase Ia trial; Forest Labs and Paion received permission to resume a Phase IIb/III trial of their stroke drug; Genzyme will develop dermal fillers discovered by Mentor; Metabasis began a Phase I test of a novel cholesterol drug; Nanogen was issued four patents for biomarkers; a Bristol-Myers Squibb drug was more effective against hepatitis B than adefovir; Sanofi-Aventis said Sculptra more effectively treated nasolabial fold wrinkles than CosmoPlast; and Genta must wait an additional 3 months to hear from the FDA on Genasense. The Centient Biotech 200™ dropped 7 points to 3987, a loss of .17%. More details...