Gilead Sciences has inked three deals this year so far totaling $14.77 billion, a marked escalation of the company’s usual M&A pace. Executives detailed the rationale for buying Arcellx, Ouro Medicine and Tubulis GmbH and whether they are interested in further deals.
After a trio of quick-fire deals, Gilead Sciences will shift focus to integration—but still keep a sharp eye on further opportunities that could bolster the pipeline.
“It’s less likely that we will pursue more sizable M&A this year, although we will always leave the door open to consider strategic acquisitions if a compelling opportunity emerges,” CFO Andrew Dickinson said on a Tuesday conference call to discuss the acquisition of Tubulis GmbH.
That buy, announced Tuesday, was Gilead’s third of the year so far, for a total cost of $14.77 billion—a marked escalation of the company’s usual M&A pace. The only time in the past four years that Gilead has paid billions for an acquisition was in 2024, when it scooped up CymaBay Therapeutics for $4.4 billion, and that was the pharma’s only purchase that year. Gilead has mostly stuck to licensing deals, signing several with top-dollar milestones stretching the value into 10 figures.
CEO Daniel O’Day assured investors on Tuesday’s call that the three deals do not reflect a lack of confidence in Gilead’s pipeline or any major changes to assumptions. They simply found the right companies in quick succession.
The spree began in February with the $7.59 billion acquisition of CAR T partner Arcellx. A $2.18 billion offer for inflammatory disease-focused Ouro Medicines followed in March and on April 7, Gilead offered $5 billion for German antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) partner Tubulis. All three deals are expected to close in the second quarter, Dickinson said.
Now, the focus will shift to bringing these new companies into the fold, O’Day explained.
“Recognizing the pace of business development activity over the last few months, we expect to take some time now to focus on integration activities and more ordinary course business development transactions,” the CEO said.
O’Day spoke to the many potential deals that have been passed up as the business development team carefully considered the best options for Gilead.
“Given the strength of our existing pipeline and our commitment to financial discipline, the bar for acquisitions is higher than ever before,” O’Day said. “We’ve been disciplined and patient and have passed on dozens of deals that didn’t meet our high bar.”
He touted that selectivity and the success of the CymaBay acquisition as Gilead’s last major buy. Just months after the deal closed, the company secured approval of rare liver disease drug Livdelzi. While Gilead did not report individual sales of Livdelzi for 2025, high demand for the drug contributed to $844 million in sales across the company’s liver disease portfolio—a 17% increase.
On Arcellx
Executives on the call went into more detail on the strategic rationale for each acquisition. Given that Arcellx and Tubulis were already Gilead partners, analysts were particularly keen to elucidate any readthroughs for other companies working with the HIV drugmaker.
“Obviously, Arcellx is a company and an opportunity that we have full knowledge about,” O’Day said. The companies began working together in December 2022 in a licensing deal worth $225 million upfront, plus $100 million in equity and up to $3.9 billion in milestones. Together, the companies have moved anitocabtagene autoleucel, or anito-cel, to the cusp of an FDA approval in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.
“When we look at Anito-cel, we see a transformative and potentially best-in-disease asset in BCMA cell therapy with an opportunity that’s underappreciated by the Street,” O’Day said. He added that bringing Arcellx fully under the pharma’s wing will allow Gilead to move even faster to launch and advance the asset into earlier lines of therapy.
“What I would say is why now, I think we are kind of at the right point of the risk continuum,” O’Day said, with positive late-stage clinical data and the FDA having accepted the biologics license application for anito-cel. The decision is expected in December.
On Tubulis
The Tubulis partnership began in 2024, with $20 million upfront, $30 million in an option fee and $415 million in potential milestones.
While the initial focus of the deal is on the ovarian cancer asset TUB-040, Gilead was also excited by the pipeline and broader ADC platform. In fact, Tubulis will operate as a dedicated ADC R&D entity within Gilead, keeping its Munich research facility “as a hub for ADC innovation,” the company explained in the Tuesday deal announcement. This strategy is part of Gilead’s playbook, having integrated cell therapy biotech Kite Pharma this way after its 2017 acquisition for nearly $12 billion.
Gilead Chief Medical Officer Dietmar Berger pointed to Tubulis’ innovation with P5 conjugation, a phosphorus-based chemistry, which could broaden ADCs to various cancer targets when combined with the right payload. The biotech is also working on Alco5 conjugation, which could take that a step further with new payloads, he said, and even open up indications beyond cancer.
“Oncology, ovarian cancer and then other areas in oncology are the first directions, but there is real opportunity to build out and move into inflammation and into virology,” Berger said.
Buying Tubulis outright was the best way to maximize value and blend the scientific expertise on both sides, O’Day said. But he cautioned analysts from assuming that this deal and the Arcellx buy mean that all partners will be acquired eventually.
“There is no one size fits all for how those partnerships will eventually evolve,” O’Day said. “Some of them we feel just would be helpful for us to fully integrate into the further strength of Gilead.”
On Ouro
The smallest of the three deals, Ouro breaks from the traditional partnership trend but still involves a melding of known organizations. Gilead will work with longtime partner company Galapagos, a well-funded biotech in search of a pipeline, to fund the transaction.
Ouro is developing T cell engager therapies under evaluation for certain autoimmune conditions, with lead asset gamgertamig showing encouraging early results in immune-mediated diseases. The drug could have potential in autoimmune hemolytic anemia, immune thrombocytopenia, pemphigus vulgaris, pemphigus foliaceus and idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, Berger explained, with Phase 3 trials beginning as early as 2027.
Berger agreed with analysts that Ouro is playing in a crowded field of BCMA-targeting therapies. Candid Therapeutics is one rival, with two Phase 1 assets in development.
“The efficacy that we’ve seen, the safety that we’ve seen, the broad applicability and also the data that we have that could lead to rather short-term regulatory upside has really led us to go with Ouro in a, yes, granted, rather competitive field,” Berger said.
