Gilead Sciences said on Monday it has raised its stake in Arcus Biosciences to 33 per cent and expanded its presence in the drug developer’s board to three, deepening their collaboration in developing cancer drugs.
It made an equity investment of $320 million, buying Arcus stock at $21 per share, a 37.3 per cent premium to its last closing price. Shares of Arcus rose 11.8 per cent to $17.2 after the bell.
Gilead said its Chief Commercial Officer Johanna Mercier will join Arcus’ board. The company had previously held a 20 per cent stake in Arcus, according to a brokerage note by Jefferies.
The two companies said they would discontinue a late-stage trial testing their candidate domvanalimab in combination with another experimental drug zimberelimab to treat a type of non-small cell lung cancer.
Domvanalimab belongs to a class of treatments known as anti-TIGIT that targets a protein receptor on immune cells that acts as a brake on the immune response.
The move comes as the companies reprioritize the joint domvanalimab development program to focus on advancing two late-stage trials testing the drug in treating lung cancer and gastrointestinal cancer.
The trials are expected to be fully enrolled by the end of the year. A planned late-stage study in pancreatic cancer evaluating investigational drug quemliclustat will also become an Arcus independent study, the companies said.
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