Invitae borrows against the future

In a year that has so far been characterised by huge medtech takeovers Invitae yesterday delivered a bit of a swerve: of the two deals it signed it was the fund raising, rather then the acquisition, that was the more eye-catching.

The cancer testing group, a liquid biopsy player since its acquisition of Archer DX last year, bought the sequencing and lab services provider Genosity for $200m. More importantly, however, it closed a $1.2bn convertible debt financing, meaning that it now has over $1.5bn in gross cash. But it is still loss-making, and the risk of it taking on debt equal to some 15% of its market cap should not be ignored.