Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holdings is continuing its Madison buying spree by acquiring Madison-based Mirus Bio for $125 million. Mirus, a privately held company, develops therapies based on nucleic acids.
Mirus was established in 1995 based on the gene therapy work of UW-Madison scientists who were the first to show that native DNA can be directly taken up by muscles and other tissues. This provides a new way to deliver nucleic acid-type therapies. Building on this pioneering research, Mirus now markets novel research reagents and is developing gene therapy tools.