Abbott announced an agreement to acquire Exact Sciences for an enterprise value of roughly $23 billion, paying $105 per share in cash and folding Exact into Abbott’s diagnostics business. The deal, expected to close in Q2 2026 pending shareholder approval, brings Exact’s colorectal, molecular residual disease and multi-cancer detection assets under Abbott’s global commercial footprint. Abbott framed the acquisition as a scale play to expand earlier cancer detection and precision oncology testing, projecting diagnostics sales above $12 billion post-close. Exact’s management will remain in advisory roles and the company will keep its Madison, Wisconsin base, minimizing immediate operational disruption while enabling Abbott to integrate Exact’s testing portfolio into its worldwide channels. Analysts and investors view the transaction as vertical consolidation in the screening-to-monitoring diagnostics market; Abbott said the deal will be immediately accretive to margins. For diagnostics developers, the acquisition signals heightened strategic value for MCED, MRD and established screening franchises as large medtech and pharma players seek platform-level assets.