Germany's Merck KGaA is buying U.K. gene-silencing biotech for $1.3 billion

Merck KGaA agreed to acquire Silence Therapeutics, a U.K. biotech focused on gene silencing, for about $1.3 billion in cash, according to The Wall Street Journal. Silence stock was up 4% on Monday before the market opened, according to Reuters.

Merck KGaA will give shareholders $20 in cash per Nasdaq-listed unit of Silence, which is 130% above where the stock last closed, according to Reuters. The deal is slated to wrap up during the first three months of 2027.

Silence detailed the proposed acquisition in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said the transaction still needs shareholder approval, sanction from the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions. Silence said it will file a proxy statement with the SEC.

Merck KGaA is separate from U.S.-based Merck & Co.

The purchase adds divesiran, an experimental medicine for the rare disease polycythemia vera, to Merck KGaA's pipeline, according to The Wall Street Journal. The drug is poised to begin later-stage studies in patients, according to The Wall Street Journal. Silence specializes in short interfering RNA, a gene-silencing technology.

Merck KGaA Chief Executive Kai Beckmann said the company continues to "transform our pipeline toward areas of high specialization and unmet medical need," according to The Wall Street Journal. “The planned acquisition of Silence Therapeutics will strengthen our capabilities to serve patients with targeted specialty and rare diseases,” Beckmann said, according to Reuters.

Iain Ross, Silence's chairman and interim principal executive officer, said Merck KGaA is well equipped, with its size, funding and commercial know-how, to hasten the drug's final-stage development, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The deal follows another acquisition by the Darmstadt, Germany-based company. Merck KGaA agreed in June to acquire Bio-Techne, a Minneapolis-based life-sciences tools supplier, in a transaction that values Bio-Techne at an enterprise value of about $11.3 billion. Beckmann became CEO in May, and the Bio-Techne agreement was his first significant deal in the role.