Why the Stock Price of This Cancer Screening Company Soared 17% Thursday

• Abbott Laboratories has agreed to acquire Exact Sciences Corp. in a deal worth $21 billion, paying shareholders $105 per share.

• Exact Sciences makes a variety of cancer screening tests, including Cologuard, and expects to generate about $3 billion in revenue this year.

• Many pharmaceutical companies are spending billions to develop screenings and treatments for a variety of cancers, as millions of people are diagnosed with cancer every year.

Shares of cancer screening test maker Exact Sciences Corp. (EXAS) surged Thursday after Abbott Laboratories (ABT) announced a deal to acquire the company for about $21 billion.

Abbott said Thursday it will pay out $105 per share to Exact Sciences’ shareholders, and that it expects the deal to close in the second quarter of next year.

Exact Sciences makes a range of cancer screening products, including Cologuard and other tests. Abbott said in its press release that the “cancer screening and precision oncology diagnostics” market in the U.S. is worth about $60 billion total.

In its most recent quarterly report earlier this month, Exact Sciences said it made $851 million in revenue in the third quarter and lifted its full-year revenue forecast to a range of $3.22 billion to $3.235 billion.

Some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world have spent billions to expand their own efforts or license and acquire other companies that are developing treatments, vaccines and screenings for various types of cancer. The target companies with innovative and promising products can command huge prices, which pays off significantly for shareholders.

Ahead of the announcement, Oppenheimer analysts wrote that the reported potential deal made sense for Abbott on a fundamentals level, but said that how the deal would be financed likely matters more for Abbott in the long run, as paying a high valuation could make the deal less attractive to investors.

Globally, studies have estimated the cancer screening market was worth more than $100 billion last year, and is projected to grow 6% to 8% annually over the next several years as population continues to expand, and the number of people diagnosed with cancer also increases. In the press release, Abbott said about 2 million people in the U.S. and 20 million people globally are diagnosed with cancer every year.

Exact Sciences’ shares rose 17% to just under $101, closing at their highest level in four years. The stock has gained roughly 80% since the start of 2025.

Abbott shares finished the day down nearly 2%. The stock is up 10% this year, lagging the performance of the S&P 500.

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