Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD), just a few months after its $4.9 billion purchase of Forty Seven, Inc. (NASDAQ: FTSV), has signed a 10-year partnership agreement to co-develop and co-commercialize next generation cancer immunotherapy with Arcus Biosciences (NYSE: RCUS). Gilead will provide $175 million upfront, a $200 million equity investment, and more than $1.6 billion in potential R&D funding.
The deal includes immediate rights to zimberelimab, an investigational anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody, as well as the right to opt-in to all other current Arcus clinical candidates. Arcus is eligible to receive up to $1.225 billion in opt-in and milestone payments with respect to its current clinical product candidates. Gilead receives the right to opt in to all other programs that emerge from Arcus’s research portfolio over the next 10 years, upon payment of an opt-in fee of $150 million per program. Gilead will also have the right to appoint two individuals to Arcus’s Board of Directors upon closing of the transaction.
In early April, Gilead announced another partnership with Second Genome, according to our Deal Search Online database. The companies entered into a four-year collaboration to identify biomarkers associated with clinical response in up to five of Gilead’s pipeline compounds in inflammation, fibrosis and other diseases. Gilead agreed to pay $38 million upfront and up to approximately $300 million in success-based preclinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones for each of five target discovery programs.
Second Genome will utilize its proprietary Microbiome Analytics Platform to identify novel biomarkers associated with clinical response to Gilead’s investigational medicines. Gilead will have the option to worldwide rights for up to five programs for all diseases, as well as exclusive rights to all biomarkers developed under the collaboration.
