What a $5 billion bid for Spark means

If you were enjoying a self-imposed phone detox over the weekend, you may have missed some fairly big biotech news: Roche is apparently making a nearly $5 billion bid to buy Spark Therapeutics, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The terms of the arrangement were not disclosed, and the deal may still yet fall apart, but the asking price alone would represent a 150 percent premium to Spark's market capitalization as of Friday. What does it all means? Quite a lot, STAT's Matt Herper points out. Among other things, it appears that large pharma companies are on a full-fledged buying spree, and that gene therapy has made the big time.

Here are five immediate takeaways.