Biotech Stock Roundup: CAR-T In Focus On Gilead-Kite Deal, Incyte Up On Baricitinib Update

 | Aug 31, 2017 08:42AM ET

CAR-T stocks were in the news this week with key biotech player, Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) announcing its intention to acquire Kite Pharma (NASDAQ:KITE) , one of the most advanced players in the CAR-T therapy market. Moreover, the FDA approved Novartis’ Kymriah yesterday, making it the first CAR-T therapy to gain approval in the U.S.

Recap of the Week’s Most Important Stories

Gilead Looks to Boost Oncology Pipeline with Kite Deal: Gilead has finally announced an M&A deal with the company saying that it will acquire Kite Pharma for $180 per share in cash or approximately $11.9 billion. Gilead has been under a lot of pressure to utilize its huge pile of cash for a major acquisition deal given the dwindling sales of its erstwhile top-selling hepatitis C virus ("HCV") franchise. The Kite acquisition, slated to close in the fourth quarter, will place Gilead among the top players in the emerging field of cell therapy. Kite’s expertise lies in developing engineered cell therapies that express either a chimeric antigen receptor ("CAR") or an engineered T cell receptor ("TCR"), depending on the type of cancer.

Kite already has a CAR-T therapy, axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel), under priority FDA review with a response expected by Nov 29, 2017. EU approval could come next year. Axi-cel is under review for the treatment of refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma ("NHL"), which includes diffuse large B-cell lymphoma ("DLBCL"), transformed follicular lymphoma ("TFL") and primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma ("PMBCL"). Other candidates in Kite’s pipeline include those targeting hematologic cancers as well as solid tumors (Also read: EU Label Expansion for Alexion, BIIB Facing Drug Price Probe ).