Does Roche Have It Right?

Roche's hostile tender offer for Ventana Medical Systems, and to a lesser extent its recent acquisitions of life science tools companies this year, highlight the firm's belief in diagnostics and its bet that personalized medicine--an area where innovative platforms and molecular test content will play significant if separate roles--will be key to its long-term growth. It could be an expensive and risky strategy that will take years to come to fruition.