PHARMACEUTICALS
Gilead to acquire Kite Pharma for $11.9 billion Deal moves infectious disease leader into cell therapy for cancer
Under pressure from Wall Street to boost revenue, Gilead executives have been exploring oncology, with an eye toward cell therapy. The firm signaled a new direction therapy—Novartis’s Kymriah—for a form In a bid to diversify its portfolio and boost earlier this year when it hired Alessandro of leukemia. growth, Gilead Sciences has agreed to Riva, then an oncologist at Novartis, to Gilead established itself in the 1990s acquire Kite Pharma, a Santa Monica, Calhead its hematology and oncology therapies as a developer of HIV/AIDS therapies. The if.-based immunotherapy specialist, for division. $11.9 billion. The complexity Kite is a leader in of manufacturing the emerging field CART therapies are produced individually for each patient. individual cell of cell therapy, in Collect patient’s Isolate and Engineer T cells with CAR Grow and expand Infuse patient with therapy treatments which a person’s white blood cells activate T cells or T-cell receptor gene engineered T cells number of T cells will pose a chalimmune cells are lenge for Gilead as activated to fight it enters the area, cancer. Its top industry watchers drug candidate, note. “Kite’s techaxicabtagene cilonology has a lot of leucel (Axi-cel), is potential, but Gila chimeric antigen ead will need to work hard to retain Kite’s firm doubled its sales in 2014 with the receptor T-cell (CART) therapy currently scientists,” says John LaMattina, nonexapproval of the hepatitis C treatments under priority review by the U.S. Food & ecutive director at PureTech Health and Sovaldi and Harvoni, which it got from its Drug Administration. Axi-cel is expected to former head of research at Pfizer. “Given 2011 purchase of Pharmasset. But sales of be the first treatment approved for refracall the competition in the CART field, it is those drugs dropped to $2.9 billion in the tory aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. likely that many of the Kite scientists will second quarter from $4.0 billion in the Just two days after Gilead announced be very poachable.”—RICK MULLIN same period last year. the deal, FDA approved its first CART
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SEPTEMBER 4, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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