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Sanofi (SNY) has entered into a definitive agreement with Translate Bio (NASDAQ: TBIO) for $38.00 per share in cash, which represents a total equity value of $3.2B a fully diluted basis. The Sanofi and Translate Bio boards unanimously approved the transaction. The purchase price represents a premium of 56% to Translate Bio's volume-weighted average price per share over the past 60 days.

The CEO of Translate Bio and Translate Bio's largest shareholder, The Baupost Group, have signed binding commitments to support the tender offer. These binding commitments, combined with the Translate Bio shares already owned by Sanofi or its affiliates, represent a total of approximately 30% of Translate Bio's total shares outstanding.

"Translate Bio adds an mRNA technology platform and strong capabilities to our research, further advancing our ability to explore the promise of this technology to develop both best-in-class vaccines and therapeutics," said Paul Hudson, Sanofi CEO.

"A fully owned platform allows us to develop additional opportunities in the fast-evolving mRNA space. We will also be able to accelerate our existing partnered programs already under development. Our goal is to unlock the potential of mRNA in other strategic areas such as immunology, oncology, and rare diseases in addition to vaccines."