Roche to buy InterMune for €6.3bn as it expands into rare diseases

Roche Holding has agreed to buy US biotech company InterMune Inc for $8.3bn (€6.3bn) in cash, helping the world’s leading maker of cancer drugs expand into the treatment of rare or incurable diseases. 

Roche’s efforts to produce successful non-cancer drugs from its own labs have been mixed, with setbacks in recent years for experimental drugs against heart disease, diabetes and schizophrenia.

The Swiss drugmaker already markets Pulmozyme for cystic fibrosis and Xolair for severe asthma in the United States and has other experimental respiratory products in clinical development, including another severe asthma drug called lebrikizumab.