Sanofi to buy U.S. mRNA partner Translate Bio for $3.2 billion

Sanofi, the French drugmaker, will buy its mRNA development partner Translate Bio for $3.2 billion. Sanofi will pay $38 per share in cash, 30% above Monday’s closing price.

Why it matters: mRNA has become the miracle technology of the pandemic as the foundation of the highly effective vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna.

The bottom line: "Ordinarily a giant in the vaccines space, Sanofi has lagged behind upstarts BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. in the pandemic as they raced ahead with mRNA shots that have now been injected into arms more than a billion times," Bloomberg's Tim Loh writes.

• "Those two companies have been lavishly rewarded for their pioneering work, with Moderna's market valuation rocketing toward $140 billion as of Monday and BioNTech's valuation now exceeding $80 billion."