BOSTON Another biotech merger announced

BOSTON (AP) -- The largest in a series of biotech mergers will create the third-largest company in the industry. Whether it will mean increased development and sales of drugs to fight cancer and other diseases remains to be seen.
Former rivals Biogen and IDEC Pharmaceuticals announced their merger plans Monday. The $6.4 billion all-stock deal is designed to create a powerhouse benefiting from the combination of short-term growth prospects at smaller, San Diego-based IDEC, whose main product is the cancer drug Rituxan, and Cambridge, Mass.-based Biogen's research and development expertise and global reach.
The deal, expected to close later this year, is the largest this year in an industry that has seen widespread consolidation of smaller companies hoping to find ways to fund expensive drug research.
"These two players as stand-alones can be major mid-cap contenders, but in order to penetrate the upper stratosphere where Amgen and Genentech currently breathe, both of these companies needed more critical mass, they needed more R & amp;D horsepower," said Jennifer Chao, a biotechnology analyst at RBC Capital Markets.