Following last month’s $7.8 billion purchase of CAR T biotech Arcellx, Gilead’s dealmaking train chugs along with yet another acquisition—this time securing Ouro Medicines’ pipeline of T cell engagers for inflammatory diseases.
Gilead Sciences is bringing Ouro Medicines into its fold in an acquisition deal that could exceed $2 billion in value. The move continues what CEO Daniel O’Day called the pharma’s “proactive and disciplined” strategy to business development, which also saw the acquisition of CAR T collaborator Arcellx last month.
On an upfront basis, Gilead has agreed to pay $1.675 billion to swallow Ouro and its T cell engager OM336, according to a Monday evening release. The pharma will also be on the hook for $500 million in contingent milestone payments.
Gilead is hoping it won’t have to foot that bill alone, however. Also on Monday, the company announced it is nearing a parallel agreement with Galapagos that would see the Belgian biotech shoulder 50% of the upfront and milestone payments of the Ouro deal.
Founded by Monograph Capital and GSK, Ouro launched in January 2025 with $120 million in starting funds and a mission to develop therapies that could reset the immune system. OM336 was at the forefront of this push, entering the clinic in June and winning the FDA’s Orphan Drug designation for immune thrombocytopenia. The drug also secured the agency’s Fast Track designation in January.
OM336 is currently in early-stage basket studies for autoimmune cytopenias and seropositive autoimmune diseases. Gilead did not detail its development plans for OM336, with CMO Dietmar Berger saying only that the drug, which targets the BCMA and CD3 proteins, represents “a differentiated approach with the potential to induce durable disease control,” and that it “complements our expanding inflammation pipeline.”
Gilead has been on a dealmaking kick recently, dropping $7.8 billion in February for Arcellx, with which it is advancing the multiple myeloma therapy anito-cel. An application is under FDA review with a target action date of Dec. 23, 2026.
In January, Gilead also linked up with OncoNano Medicine for a drug delivery system that could help the pharma package one of its cancer treatments. And last October, Gilead partnered with Pregene, putting up to $1.64 billion on the line for an in vivo cell therapy, though details of this agreement remain sparse.
If Gilead is successful in bringing Galapagos in on the Ouro deal, the smaller company would not only take on half of the acquisition cost but also entirely fund the development of OM336 until registrational studies. At that point, Gilead would step in and carry half of the financial burden alongside Galapagos.
This potential Galapagos deal “meaningfully de risks Gilead’s investment profile,” analysts at Truist Securities told investors in a note late Monday. The agreement would ease the pharma’s upfront, milestone and R&D expenses “while preserving downstream economics and commercialization control.”
Indeed, under the proposed partnership with Galapagos, Gilead will retain all global commercialization rights over OM336 except in the Greater China region. Galapagos, meanwhile, will be eligible for tiered royalties ranging from 20% to 23% of net sales. The biotech will also absorb “substantially all” of Ouro’s operating assets and employees.
Gilead and Galapagos are long-time partners. The companies first joined hands in July 2019 to advance a broad portfolio of investigational drugs, with the pharma putting more than $5 billion on the line.
In January 2025, however, the partners drastically restructured the agreement, deciding to split Galapagos into two entities: One would pursue Galapagos’ emerging cell therapy pipeline while the other would look for new areas to work in. Under these new terms, Gilead would have a 25% stake in both the resulting companies. Months later, however, in May last year, Galapagos ditched these plans, instead saying it would “explore all strategic alternatives for its existing businesses.”
