Gilead buys Forty Seven for $4.9 billion
The American Biotechnology company, Gilead Sciences Inc said that it will buy the Forty Seven Inc in a deal worth $4.9 billion in cash and gets an addition to its portfolio of oncology drugs with an experimental treatment that targets blood cancer.
This deal comes at a time when the sales of hepatitis C drugs from Gilead have seen a steep fall and the deal is expected to complement the portfolio of Kite Pharma Inc, acquired by Gilead in 2017 for $12 billion.
Evan Seigerman, Credit Suisse analyst said, “I think Daniel O’Day, the CEO and his management must do something more impactful though the deal is in line with the strategy he had laid out earlier in the year.”
Magrolimab, the lead drug of Forty Seven, which avoids the destruction of cells by switching off a “do not eat me” signal known as CD47 expressed by tumor cells is in its early-stage testing. Gilead will have access to this drug through the acquisition.
In the development of drugs for treating cancer, CD47 antibodies, a lucrative, are a relatively new class of drugs but it will be a difficult market to enter for drugmakers.
Gilead executives said that in the future, magrolimab, which was initially focused on treating blood cancers called myelodysplastic syndromes, could be used alongside Yescarta, a CAR-T therapy Gilead gained through the Kite acquisition.
Merdad Parsey, Gilead Chief Medical Officer said, ” I think we can imagine having possibilities in the area of DLBCL, in which there are ongoing studies and data is being generated.”
A type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma or DLBCL is being treated currently with Yescarta and for the same, as a treatment, magrolimab is being tested.
SunTrust analysts said that as a treatment for certain types of DLBCL, Gilead’s Yescarta, a CAR-T therapy added through the acquisition of Kite, has gained market share.
Gilead buys Forty Seven for $4.9 billion – Source
Author – Prathibha HC
