Gilead Sciences and Arcus Biosciences Expand Research Partnership

Gilead Sciences and Arcus Biosciences, a US-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced on May 15, 2023 that they are expanding a previously announced research collaboration to now include development of therapies for treating inflammatory diseases. Their initial collaboration agreement, worth potentially more than $1.6 billion, focused on oncology (1).

Under the expanded collaboration, Arcus will receive an upfront payment of $35 million. Arcus will initiate research programs against up to four targets that are jointly selected by both parties and that are applicable to inflammatory diseases. Gilead would have the option to license each program at two separate, prespecified time points. If Gilead exercises its option for the first two target programs at the earlier time point, then Arcus would be eligible to receive up to $420 million in option and milestone payments as well as tiered royalties for each optioned program. For any other option exercised by Gilead for the four target programs, the two parties would have rights to co-develop the candidates. In addition, both parties would share global development costs and co-commercialize and share profits in the United States for optioned programs.

“We are pleased to build upon Gilead’s efforts in inflammation with the expansion of our strategic collaboration with Arcus,” said Flavius Martin, executive vice-president, Research, Gilead Sciences, in a company press release. “Arcus is an excellent partner with clear strengths in discovery and development, and we believe this partnership will significantly accelerate our progress in developing transformative new therapies for inflammatory diseases.”

“Since its founding, Arcus has been creating and developing therapeutic interventions that can modulate the immune system to treat cancer. Through this expansion of our partnership with Gilead, we can combine our research expertise in immunology and small-molecule drug discovery with Gilead’s strong clinical experience in inflammation,” said Terry Rosen, CEO, Arcus, in the release. “The research collaboration facilitates much earlier alignment between Gilead and Arcus on our discovery and development activities, while enabling Arcus to expand into inflammation in a capital-efficient manner.”

Reference

1. Gilead Sciences, Gilead Sciences and Arcus Biosciences Establish 10-year Partnership to Co-develop and Co-commercialize Next-generation Cancer Immunotherapies. Press Release, May 27, 2020.

Source: Gilead Sciences