Danish-Dutch biotechnology company Genmab has agreed to buy Utrecht-based drug developer Merus in a deal worth $8 billion (€6.8 billion), the two companies confirmed on Monday.

Genmab will pay $97 per share, almost ten times Merus’s 2016 listing price, and 41% above last Friday’s closing price.

Merus, which is listed on the Nasdaq, is developing treatments for head and neck cancer as well as advanced forms of bowel cancer. The company posted revenues of $36 million last year, down from $44 million in 2023, and is still loss-making. Genmab said it expects to bring Merus’s cancer therapies successfully to market.

Shares in Merus rose sharply earlier this year after promising trial results showed one of its drugs could shrink tumours in head and neck cancer patients. The bowel cancer treatment, still in testing, is seen as potentially even more lucrative because of the size of the market.

Genmab, headquartered in Copenhagen but with its main R&D centre in Utrecht, has a market value of around €15.8 billion and employs about 700 people in the Netherlands.

The company is led by Dutch chief executive Jan van de Winkel, who said the takeover was “clearly aligned with our long-term strategy” to build Genmab into a global biotechnology leader.

The acquisition will be paid for in cash, partly financed with $5.5 billion in debt. Genmab expects the deal to contribute positively to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) by 2029.

Genmab’s shares have risen by around 20% this year, while Merus’s stock price has surged on the back of its promising cancer treatments. The deal will see Merus delisted from the Nasdaq once the takeover is completed.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of both companies.