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Rosetta Inpharmatics LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck & Co. Inc., develops and implements technologies that will improve drug discovery. The company's leading-edge genomic research and data analysis efforts focus on how medical compounds affect biology, enabling more accurate selection of drug targets and more efficient drug development.
Rosetta Inpharmatics was founded in 1996 to design and implement DNA microarray gene expression technologies. The company was established with the goal to overcome the problems limiting the discovery and effective development of pharmaceutical and agricultural products. The founders include: Stephen H. Friend, M.D., Ph.D., the company's president; Leland Hartwell, Ph.D., and Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D. Rosetta Inpharmatics' technology and patent portfolio were enhanced by its purchase of Acacia Biosciences, Inc. in February 1999, a company founded by Jasper Rine, Ph.D.
In October 1999, the Company signed a strategic partnership agreement with Agilent Technologies to further develop and commercialize Rosetta Inpharmatics' DNA microarrays. As part of this agreement, Agilent made a significant equity investment in Rosetta Inpharmatics.
In June 2000, Rosetta Inpharmatics successfully deployed its first commercially available bioinformatics system, the Rosetta Resolver® Gene Expression Data Analysis System. The Rosetta Resolver system was introduced to meet the demand for high-level gene expression analysis within the life sciences industries. It remains the flagship product of Rosetta Inpharmatics' business unit, Rosetta Biosoftware. Rosetta Inpharmatics became a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ National Market, under the stock symbol RSTA. The Company raised approximately $116 million from its initial public offering in August 2000.
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In May 2001, Merck & Co. Inc. announced it would acquire Rosetta Inpharmatics in a tax-free reorganization. The transaction, which closed in July 2001, had a net equity value of $620 million.
The acquisition of Rosetta Inpharmatics is seen as a clear signal by Merck to improve its pace of innovation in drug discovery. Rosetta Inpharmatics' 200 highly skilled scientists use Rosetta-developed technology to more efficiently analyze genomic data and to predict how medical compounds will interact with different kinds of cells in the body. These data enables Merck scientists to select drug targets more accurately, and increase the speed of the drug development process.
For additional information on Rosetta Inpharmatics, please contact us.
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