Roche, a Swiss drugmaker said it was acquiring Genia Technologies, a privately held U.S. gene-sequencing firm for around $350 million. This deal will give Roche access to a technology that should allow it to decipher human genes at a considerably cheaper cost.

Gene sequencing is essential for the development and use of new medicines by allowing physicians and researchers to better understand the human genome.

Genia Technologies was founded in 2009 and is developing proprietary technology that is expected to reduce the price of DNA sequencing while increasing the sensitivity and speed of such sequencing.

Roche which is based in Basel, Switzerland was founded in 1896. In 2013, it’s posted annual sales of about $52.2 billion or about 46.8 billion Swiss francs and worldwide it employs more than 85,000 people.

According to Roche, under the terms of the deal which was announced on Monday, shareholders of Genia Technologies will receive up to $225 million in contingent payments depending on certain milestones and $125 million in cash.

Roche which is the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs said earlier this year that it was keen to acquire technologies to strengthen its diagnostics unit. Chief Operating Officer of Roche Diagnostics, Roland Diggelmann said that this acquisition of Genia is a step forward for Roche to introduce a potentially disruptive technology to the market.

Genia uses inexpensive electronic semiconductors, which are used in computers and cell phones to identify DNA sequences and to measure changes in electrical currents, while many other sequencing platforms rely on expensive optical sensors.

Roche abandoned an attempt to acquire Illumina, a gene-sequencing company after Illumina’s shareholders rejected its $6.7 billion offer in 2012.

Buoyed by positive drug data released at a big cancer conference in the United States, shares of Roche were up 1.9 percent.