Abbott paid $105 in cash for every Exact Sciences share, and the Madison, Wisconsin, company is now a wholly owned Abbott subsidiary. The deal closed on a Monday in March 2026, according to Crain’s Chicago Business, which was first to report it. Abbott put the equity value at roughly $21 billion. Enterprise value comes to near $23 billion, and Abbott also took on about $1.8 billion of Exact’s net debt, per Exact’s investor materials.
Exact is best known for Cologuard, the at-home colon cancer screening kit. Its portfolio also includes Oncotype DX and other screening and precision oncology tests, all of which now go through Abbott’s commercial operation. Abbott said Exact is projected to bring in more than $3 billion in revenue this year, and that its own diagnostics sales should exceed $12 billion annually once the two businesses are combined.
Announced in November
Abbott announced the purchase in November 2025. The $105 price was a 22% premium to Exact’s closing price the day before, and shares had already jumped after Bloomberg reported that a deal was close. Both boards approved it unanimously. Exact shareholders voted yes at a special meeting on Feb. 20, according to a Form 8-K filed with the SEC.
The timing was awkward for Abbott. The announcement came a little over a month after a third-quarter report in which earnings per share of $1.30 met expectations but revenue of $11.37 billion fell slightly short of forecasts. The stock slid. On the morning of the Exact announcement it traded down about 1.5%.
Exact, for its part, reported $851 million in third-quarter revenue, up 20%. Screening, the division Cologuard sits in, produced $666 million, and precision oncology added $184 million. In March the company launched Cologuard Plus for average-risk adults 45 and older, after FDA approval in October 2024.
“Exact Sciences’ innovation, its strong brand and customer-focused execution are unrivaled in the cancer diagnostics space,” Abbott CEO Robert B. Ford said in a statement. Together with Exact’s people, he said, Abbott can “take on the global challenge of cancer.”
Analysts: the salesforce is the point
Stewart Glickman of CFRA wrote that the purchase could “reinvigorate” Abbott’s diagnostics unit, which makes up 20% of current sales, and called it Abbott’s largest acquisition since the $25B St. Jude Medical deal in 2017.
TD Cowen’s Joshua Jennings pointed to distribution. Abbott’s Libre franchise has roughly 1,000 reps who already call on primary care doctors. “Since colorectal cancer screening is overwhelmingly driven by primary care,” he wrote, “Cologuard can be integrated into workflows that Abbott’s reps already influence every day.”
What stays in Madison
Exact told investors it will keep its Madison operations. Longtime CEO Kevin Conroy is moving into an advisory role to help with the handoff. For the city’s life sciences sector, that means a large employer and research hub remains in town under a new parent.
Industry observers quoted in the coverage say the harder part comes next. Reimbursement for newer multi-cancer tests and how smoothly the two companies integrate will decide whether the price pays off, and insurers have yet to say whether they will widen coverage for next-generation screening.
Sources
- Abbott Closes $21B Exact Sciences Deal; Madison Operations Stay
- Abbott buys Exact Sciences for $21B, marking major cancer diagnostics play
