Genentech gets tenderized

Roche looks to have made a no-lose proposition last Friday when it said it would go directly to Genentech Inc. shareholders with a reduced tender offer for the rest of the biotech giant it doesn't already own. While the pharma isn't talking, the logic would be to complete its purchase before Phase III data for Avastin bevacizumab as an adjuvant in colorectal cancer come out in April.

The consensus on the Street is that Genentech's shares could move up or down by about 25% when those data come out. The stock has been trading in the mid-$80s for the past month, so a swing either way would mean a price as low as $60 or higher than $100...