Prometheus Biosciences stock soars amid $10.8 billion acquisition deal by Merck

Yahoo Finance Live highlights Prometheus Bioscience's stock performance amid the company's deal with pharmaceutical giant Merck.

Video transcript

- Prometheus Bioscience is a top trending ticker on the Yahoo Finance homepage. Shares are soaring today, up nearly 70% on news that pharma giant Merck will acquire the company in an all-cash deal valued at about $10.8 billion. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year and comes amid an uptick of pharma-focused M&A. Remember, Pfizer acquired Seagen for $43 billion earlier this year, while Sanofi announced a $2.9 billion acquisition of Prevention Bio back in March.

And it is important to understand that dealmaking overall, that stalled significantly amid high interest rates, recession fears, geopolitical tensions. But there does seem to be signs of life in this market, especially with this Merck deal really demonstrating that.

- Yeah, definitely. And it seems to be that Merck also is trying to just beef up its unit for immunology because it has the Keytruda. That's a cancer drug. It's a blockbuster drug. It's done really well. But the patent on it is going to expire by the end of the decade. So they are trying to find other ways to make revenue when that happens. So an interesting play there by Merck.