Amgen and Micromet, Inc. today announced that the companies have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amgen will acquire Micromet, a biotechnology company with its research and development center in Munich and headquarters in Rockville, Md., for $11 per share in cash. The transaction, which values Micromet at approximately $1.16 billion, was unanimously approved by both the Amgen and Micromet Boards of Directors and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012.

A national Cooley team led by partner Christian Plaza in Reston and partner Barbara Borden, San Diego-based head of the firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions practice, advised Micromet. Other Cooley attorneys closely involved in this deal were Reston-based partner Dave Walsh, Washington, D.C.-based partner Howard Morse, and New York-based partner Dan Meehan; special counsel Rama Padmanabhan; and associates Shannon Gallagher-Bolton, Dan Gutierrez and Ashlie Lawton.  Additional support was provided by Reston-based partners Ken Krisko and Darren DeStefano, as well as special counsel Brian Leaf.

Cooley’s national Life Sciences practice is one of the country’s most prominent and is consistently the top-ranked firm for the representation of life sciences companies. In the past decade, Cooley has completed more than 70 major corporate partnering and licensing deals, with total deal value in excess of $26.5 billion, closed more than 90 life sciences M&A deals, and completed more than 200 life sciences public offerings, including 36 IPOs.  Cooley was recently named “Law Firm of the Year” in Biotechnology, by US News and Best Lawyers.