Gilead Nears $20 Billion Deal for Immunomedics, WSJ Says

(Bloomberg) -- Gilead Sciences Inc. is close to finalizing a deal to buy Immunomedics Inc. and its Trodelvy breast-cancer drug for more than $20 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

A deal could be announced by Monday, if the talks don’t fall apart or a rival bid emerge, the report said. Morris Plains, New Jersey-based Immunomedics has a market value of $9.8 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and its share price has almost doubled this year. Gilead was valued at $82.2 billion as of Friday.

Pharmaceutical companies have been coveting Immunomedics since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration unexpectedly accelerated approval for Trodelvy in April. Approval came after a study showed the drug beat back triple negative breast cancer for nearly four months longer than chemotherapy in patients getting the medication as a third line of therapy. The hard-to-treat disease doesn’t respond to many of the current treatment regimens. Immunomedics plans to file for full approval of the medicine later this year.

Gilead’s hepatitis C franchise, which helped make the Foster City, California-based firm a pharmaceutical giant, has struggled in recent years. Daniel O’Day, the company’s chief executive officer since March 2019, has pushed the company into finding new ways to offset sinking sales, like the $5.1 billion deal the company inked with European drugmaker Galapagos NV in July of last year to develop and market Galapagos drugs outside of Europe.

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