Pacbio hopes to avoid antitrust issues with Omniome

 18 months after its acquisition by Illumina was stymied by antitrust concerns, Pacific Biosciences has done a similar, if smaller, deal of its own. It is acquiring Omniome for $600m upfront in cash and stock, with an additional $200m in milestone payments on the table. Pacbio hopes to add Omniome's short-read sequencing technology to its own long-read platforms. Theoretically these approaches are different – short-read tech sequences strands of DNA a few hundred bases at a time and then uses computers to stitch the fragments together, whereas long-read sequencing can handle around 10,000 bases. But the FTC considered these two approaches to be similar enough to deny approval to the Illumina-Pacbio deal, and though the Omniome acquisition is half the size of that earlier tie-up it too could risk running afoul of the regulator. Illumina, meanwhile, is reportedly getting bogged down even further in its efforts to reacquire its own spinout, the liquid biopsy developer Grail. 

Pacbio-Omniome is the ninth biggest medtech M&A of 2021
Announcement date	Acquirer	Target	Value ($m)	Focus
Jan 12	Steris	Cantel Medical	4,600	Endoscopy, general & plastic surgery, nephrology
Mar 12	Roche	Genmark Diagnostics	1,800	In vitro diagnostics
Apr 11	Diasorin	Luminex	1,800	In vitro diagnostics
Jan 21	Boston Scientific	Preventice Solutions	1,225	Patient monitoring
Mar 3	Boston Scientific	Surgical business of Lumenis	1,070	General and plastic surgery, ophthalmics
Jan 4	Dentsply Sirona	Byte	1,040	Dental
Mar 12	Hellman & Friedman (private equity)	Cordis business of Cardinal Health	1,000	Cardiology
Jun 23	Tecan Group	Paramit, subsidiary of Altaris Capital Partners	1,000	Blood, in vitro diagnostics
Jul 20	Pacbio	Omniome	800	In vitro diagnostics
Apr 8	Hologic	Mobidiag	795	In vitro diagnostics
Source: Evaluate Medtech. https://www.evaluate.com/vantage/articles/news/snippets/pacbio-hopes-avoid-antitrust-issues-omniome