Roche, the Swiss drug maker is to acquire InterMune that sells a drug to treat a deadly lung disease for $8.3 billion. The price, $74 per share, represents a 38 percent premium to the closing price of InterMune on Friday.

According a research company, Evaluate, around $87 billion were made in pharmaceutical acquisitions in the first half of this year, surpassing the total for all of 2013. The total for the first half does not include the $54 billion acquisition of Shire by AbbVie, which was announced this year in July.

Based in Brisbane, InterMune is a biotechnology company which has one product on the market: a drug called pirfenidone to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a fatal scarring of the lungs.

InterMune sells pirfenidone under the name Esbriet in Canada and Europe, where it received regulatory approval in 2012 and 2011 respectively. By November 23, the drug could receive approval in the United States. Esbriet’s sales in the second quarter were $35.7 million; however some analysts expect annual revenues to eventually exceed $1 billion.

Daniel O’Day, who is the Chief Operating Officer in Pharmaceuticals Division of Roche, said that they are obviously focused on high unmet medical needs and looking for medicines that make a significant difference clinically and pirfenidone clearly fits that bill. According to Daniel O’Day, the acquisition would strengthen its portfolio of drugs for respiratory diseases which has not been a major business for the company primarily known for its cancer treatment drugs. Roche sells a drug for asthma, called Xolair and for cystic fibrosis called Pulmozyme. However, it has another drug, lebrikizumab, which is in late-stage clinical trials to treat severe asthma and is also being evaluated as a possible treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

However, if it is approved, Esbriet will not have the market to itself for long because Boehringer Ingelheim of Germany has also applied for approval of a drug called nintedanib for treating pulmonary fibrosis.