Roche seeks small deals with ‘no urgency’ to buy rest of Chugai

Roche's top products are cancer drugs, and it has lately struggled to develop big hits in other areas. It said last month that a trial of an experimental medicine for Alzheimer's had disappointing results. Treatments for the ailment have largely eluded the drug industry.

While Roche is looking for more deals, there is "no urgency" for the company to buy the 40 percent share of Japanese drugmaker Chugai that it doesn't already own, Hippe said. Roche decided against consolidating Chugai and instead focused on the InterMune acquisition, Bloomberg reported in August, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Chugai has "outgrown the market for quite a while now," he said. "It's a very, very beneficial partnership in both directions."

Roche is pleased to be getting a majority stake in Cambridge, Mass. -based Foundation Medicine because it gives the U.S. company operational independence and room to "perhaps do a couple of acquisitions on their own," Hippe said.

–With assistance from Makiko Kitamura in London.