A Gilead Sciences office is shown in Foster City, California, U.S. May 1, 2018.<\/p>\n
Stephen Lam | Reuters<\/p>\n
Gilead Sciences<\/a> will pay as much as $7.8 billion to acquire partner Arcellx<\/a> in \u200bits largest deal since 2020, the \u200bbiopharma company said on \u200bMonday, as it looks to strengthen its lineup of cancer treatments.<\/p>\n The company, with a strong foothold in HIV drugs and liver disease treatments, has been looking for growth beyond its core areas as \u2060it \u200cfaces declining sales of its COVID-19 drug Veklury and prepares \u2060for future patent losses.<\/p>\n Under current CEO Daniel O’ Day, Gilead has pursued several big-ticket deals and partnerships including its $21 billion acquisition of Immunomedics in 2020.<\/p>\n The proposed Arcellx acquisition is an example of how companies are increasingly using early \u200cpartnerships to secure privileged positions as potential buyers, particularly in competitive fields such as oncology, a person involved in the deal told Reuters.<\/p>\n Gilead will pay $115 per share in \u200bcash, which is a premium of 79% to the stock’s last close. Shares of Arcellx rose 77.9% to $114.06 in morning trading.<\/p>\n Kite Pharma, a unit of Gilead Sciences, was partnering with Arcellx to jointly develop and sell anito-cel – an experimental CAR-T therapy for multiple \u2060myeloma, a type of blood cancer.<\/p>\n Several analysts said anito-cel could become a leading cell therapy in multiple \u200cmyeloma and transform into a “multi-billion dollar product” for Gilead.<\/p>\n The U.S. \u200cFood and Drug Administration is currently reviewing the therapy as a fourth-line treatment, with a decision expected by December 23 this year.<\/p>\n RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams said anito-cel had the potential for a better safety \u2060profile when compared to market-leading CAR-T therapy Carvykti.<\/p>\n Carvykti, developed by Johnson & Johnson and partner Legend \u2060Biotech, was launched in 2022 and generated about $1.9 billion in sales in 2025.<\/p>\n Gilead \u2060will also gain Arcellx’s early-stage experimental treatments for acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer, as well as generalized myasthenia gravis, a rare neuromuscular disease.<\/p>\n The \u200bdeal, which is expected to close in \u200cthe second quarter of 2026, will also remove up to $1.5 billion in potential milestone payments for Gilead, said BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman.<\/p>\n Upon FDA approval of anito-cel, the proposed transaction is expected to be accretive to earnings per share in 2028 and beyond.<\/p>\n Gilead will also pay Arcellx shareholders $5 per share, contingent upon achieving cumulative \u200banito-cel global net sales of at least $6 \u200cbillion from launch through the end of 2029. \u200b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Gilead Sciences office is shown in Foster City, California, U.S. May 1, 2018. Stephen Lam | Reuters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[251178,64,63,507,174,44351,137,508,500,53128,52288,251179],"class_list":["post-499303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-arcellx-inc","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-biotech-and-pharmaceuticals","tag-business-news","tag-gilead-sciences-inc","tag-health","tag-health-care-industry","tag-healthcare","tag-ishares-biotechnology-etf","tag-spdr-sp-biotech-etf","tag-vaneck-biotech-etf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}