The latest healthcare merger has sent this stock through the roof

Shares of Bio-Reference Laboratories are surging after news it's being acquired for $1.47 billion.

On Thursday morning, Opko Health said it will pay 2.75 shares for each Bio-Reference Labs share, which comes to about $52.58 per share.

Bio-Reference Labs surged more than 43% in premarket trading after being briefly halted, and opened about 40% higher. Opko Health fell more than 5%.

Bio-Reference Labs closed at $32.96 a share on Thursday. It's up 23% over the past 12 months.

The statement said, "OPKO intends to leverage the national marketing, sales, and distribution resources of Bio-Reference Laboratories to enhance sales of its 4Kscore test, a blood test that provides a patient's specific personalized risk score for aggressive prostate cancer as well as other OPKO diagnostic products under development."

The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year.

Here's a chart showing the spike in Bio-Reference Labs shares on Thursday morning:

NOW WATCH: Animated map shows what Europe would look like if all the Earth's ice melted

Please enable Javascript to watch this video