Still pon­der­ing an M&A move, Gilead­'s R&D team out­lines a Q3 line­up of set­backs on 3 pipeline drugs

Hit on one side by slump­ing hep C rev­enue and on the oth­er side by high ex­pec­ta­tions for its pipeline ef­fort, Gilead grim­ly hung on to sim­tuzum­ab af­ter the LOXL2 en­zyme block­er flopped in two straight stud­ies. Now the Big Biotech has added sev­er­al more fail­ures to the ros­ter and put the five-time los­er on the shelf for good.

And that’s not all.

Two more drugs al­so failed a line­up of clin­i­cal tri­al tests, leav­ing Gilead $GILD look­ing weak­er on the R&D front at pre­cise­ly the time it needs to show strength. In ad­di­tion to sim­tuzum­ab, the biotech al­so wrote off the late-stage drug GS-5745 for ul­cer­a­tive col­i­tis and Crohn’s. And it’s top car­dio prospect failed a study as well, sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duc­ing its chances of be­com­ing the big new drug that Gilead needs as hep C wanes. Mean­while, its Q3 R&D ex­pens­es spiked, large­ly due to the $200 mil­lion pay­ment it just made to Nim­bus.

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