Abbott Laboratories Will Buy Cologuard Maker Exact Sciences for $21 Billion

Exact Sciences is being acquired by Abbott Laboratories. Exact Sciences shareholders will receive $105 a share in cash under terms of the deal. (Courtesy of Exact Sciences)

Key Points

• Abbott Laboratories will acquire Exact Sciences in a cash deal valued at about $21 billion.
• The total enterprise value of the acquisition, including Exact’s $1.8 billion net debt, is around $23 billion.
• Exact Sciences is being bought for $105 a share.

The healthcare conglomerate Abbott Laboratories said on Thursday it would buy Exact Sciences, makers of the at-home colon cancer test Cologuard, for roughly $21 billion.

The deal appears to be the biggest healthcare acquisition announced this the year, and would be Abbott’s largest since 2017. Abbott will pay $105 per share of Exact Sciences, a 50% premium over Exact Sciences’ closing price on Tuesday of $69.68.

It’s a happy ending for Exact Sciences, which was trading around $40 per share as recently as August. Abbott came in at what was a 12-month high for the stock. Exact Sciences stock had climbed this fall, amid strong third-quarter Cologuard sales growth and a broader recovery for healthcare stocks. Its Tuesday closing price was its highest since November of 2024.

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the two companies were close to an arrangement, sending Exact Sciences shares up another 23.7% by Wednesday’s close. The stock was up 17.9% on Thursday to $101.57.

Abbott shares were down 1.3% on Thursday after falling 3% on Wednesday.

“Their revenue is accelerating, and it’s not just the new products that are being launched,” Abbott CEO Robert Ford said of Exact Sciences on an investor call early Thursday. “Even the existing products, and the iterations of these existing technologies and products, are seeing revenue acceleration.”

Abott said it would absorb Exact Sciences’ net debt of $1.8 billion, bringing the estimate enterprise value of the acquisition to roughly $23 billion. It said that the acquisition would weight on Abbott’s earnings per share by 20 cents in 2026, and 16 cents in 2027, and would be accretive to earnings by 2028.

Abbott, one of the largest healthcare companies in the U.S., has a broad diagnostics portfolio, which includes at-home Covid-19 tests, complex screening tools used in laboratories, and smaller machines that can sit on a desk in a doctor’s office. The company also sells infant formula, medical devices, and a number of different prescription drugs.

Abbott said that adding Exact Sciences will increase Abbott’s diagnostic sales to $12 billion a year. Abbott total sales were $42 billion in 2024, and its diagnostic sales were $9.3 billion. Its stock is up 9% this year.

Exact Sciences, which went public in 2001, sells genetic tests, a liver cancer screening test called Oncoguard, and Cologuard, which was memorably lampooned by Saturday Night Live in 2023. It also sells Oncotype DX, which can guide breast cancer treatment, among other testing products.

As of the end of the day on Tuesday, Exact Sciences shares had risen 24% this year, and its market value was $13.2 billion. Its revenue in 2024 were $2.8 billion.

Analysts said Thursday they don’t see synergies between Abbott and Exact Sciences—Exact’s diagnostic tests are run in central labs, while Abbott generally sells diagnostic instruments—though they could share a sales force.

“We appreciate the strategic rationale to acquire a high-growth asset which can further bolster ABT’s Diagnostics franchise,” Leerink Partners analyst Mike Kratky wrote Thursday. Kratky has a Market Perform rating on Abbott.

For analysts covering Exact Sciences, the deal was good news for the company and for its peers.

“Beyond the clear positive for EXAS, we see this transaction as a positive for the entire [diagnostics] sector as we believe it helps validate the sector and the central lab business model,” Leerink Partners analyst Puneet Souda, who has an Outperform rating on Exact Sciences, wrote Thursday.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, pending approval from regulators and Exact Sciences shareholders.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com and Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com