Delays from the Federal Trade Commission and concerns about the timing of Roche Holding AG’s planned $4.8 billion deal to buy small-cap drug developer Spark Therapeutics Inc. are stoking concerns across Wall Street as investors question what the agency is hung-up on.
Some in the investment community argue that thanks to a more nit-picky FTC, a deal that should have been cleared with flying colors continues to be clouded with questions. Many on the Street guess that the holdup is tied to competitive concerns for Roche’s blockbuster Hemlibra, a medicine for the clotting disorder hemophilia, and a gene therapy for the disease in development from Spark.
