BERLIN, April 11 (Reuters) - Novartis said on

Thursday it has launched a tender offer to acquire MorphoSys

, a German developer of cancer treatments, for an

aggregate 2.7 billion euros ($2.9 billion).

Reuters reported in February that Swiss drugmaker Novartis

would buy MorphoSys, which had an equity market value of around

1.6 billion euros before the offer was announced.

The Swiss drugmaker said its cash offer price of 68 euros

per MorphoSys share corresponds to a premium of 142% on the

volume-weighted average price during the last three months, as

of the unaffected closing price on Jan. 25.

MorphoSys shares closed at 67.1 euros on April 10.

Novartis, which said the acceptance period begins on

Thursday and will end at midnight on May 13, will take MorphoSys

private after the deal, which is contingent on certain

conditions, including a minimum acceptance threshold of 65%.

MorphoSys, which is headquartered in Planegg, Germany,

develops drugs to fight deadly forms of cancers such as

myelofibrosis, which is a rare type of bone marrow cancer, and

certain types of knotty lymphomas.

Novartis has been cutting jobs and costs, and spun off its

generic drugs business Sandoz last year, part of a focus on

fewer therapeutic areas and geographic markets.

It has said its overall mergers and acquisitions strategy

was focused on deals worth less than $5 billion.

Novartis said Deutsche Bank is acting as share tender agent

and Bank of New York Mellon ( BK ) will serve as American Depository

Shares (ADS) tender agent for the offer.

($1 = 0.9307 euros)

(Writing by Miranda Murray, Editing by Rachel More, Andrey

Sychev and Alexander Smith)