Div­ing deep in­to CAR-T, Gilead forges $12B buy­out deal for Kite Phar­ma

Gilead has forged the big, trans­for­ma­tion­al buy­out deal that every­one in the in­dus­try has been wait­ing for.

Gilead $GILD has agreed to buy CAR-T pi­o­neer Kite Phar­ma $KITE — which is like­ly just months away from its first ap­proval — for $11.9 bil­lion in cash.

The buy­out will in­stant­ly make Gilead a leader in adop­tive cell ther­a­py, go­ing head-to-head against No­var­tis’ lead­ing ef­fort with CTL019. And in a call with an­a­lysts ear­ly Mon­day, Gilead ex­ecs un­der­scored that while cell ther­a­pies would be­come the cor­ner­stone of their work in on­col­o­gy, the busi­ness de­vel­op­ment team is pur­su­ing more pacts to build that seg­ment of the pipeline.

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