Gilead Sciences Increases Stake In Arcus Biosciences To 33%

(RTTNews) - Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) has raised its stake in Arcus Biosciences Inc. (RCUS) to 33% to accelerate growth of their joint development programs that span multiple indications, the companies said in a statement.

RCUS closed Monday's regular trading at $15.30 up $0.17 or 1.12%. In the after-hours trading, the stock further gained $1.70 or 11.11%.

Gilead Sciences and Arcus Biosciences announced an amendment to their collaboration agreement and a separate equity investment by Gilead of $320 million in Arcus common stock at $21.00 per share. The amendment provides Gilead with one additional seat on the Arcus Board.

Johanna Mercier, Chief Commercial Officer at Gilead Sciences, will join the Arcus Board, bringing Gilead's total director designees to three.

"This amendment allows Gilead to accelerate the domvanalimab program and enables Arcus to focus on progressing multiple pipeline assets, including both Gilead-optioned and non-optioned programs," said Merdad Parsey, Chief Medical Officer, Gilead Sciences.

Gilead and Arcus have reprioritized the joint domvanalimab development program to focus on advancing and potentially accelerating the Phase 3 studies STAR-121 (lung cancer) and STAR-221 (gastrointestinal cancer), which are both expected to be fully enrolled by year-end.

The companies also plan to initiate STAR-131, a new registrational Phase 3 lung cancer study that includes the domvanalimab plus zimberelimab regimen. This prioritization reflects the companies' continued conviction in the TIGIT pathway and the Fc-silent design of domvanalimab, which has the potential for differentiation in both efficacy and safety.

Additional changes during this prioritization will include discontinuing further enrollment in the Phase 3 ARC-10 study evaluating domvanalimab plus zimberelimab compared to pembrolizumab monotherapy in first-line locally advanced or metastatic, PD-L1-high NSCLC.

Also, under the terms of the amended collaboration agreement, the planned Phase 3 first-line study in pancreatic cancer evaluating the investigational small molecule CD73 inhibitor quemliclustat will become an Arcus independent study.