A biotechnology company that just presented data on a cancer immunotherapy drug it had recently acquired is venturing further into the field by taking out a large equity interest in a privately owned immuno-oncology company.
Foster City, California-based Gilead Sciences said Tuesday that it had acquired a 49.9% stake in South San Francisco, California-based Pionyr Immunotherapeutics for $275 million, as well as an exclusive option to acquire the rest of the company. The deal will also enable Pionyr’s shareholders to receive up to $1.47 billion in option exercise fees and milestone payments. The option exercise fee would be $315 million, while the milestone payments would be up to $1.15 billion.
Pionyr’s last major financing was in December 2017, when it closed a $62 million Series B financing round. The company’s pipeline page lists three product candidates, all in varying stages of preclinical development for solid tumor cancers: PY314, in studies to enable advancement into clinical trials; PY159, which is not far behind; and PI-114, in an earlier stage of development. The company’s therapies are designed to potentially treat patients who do not benefit from checkpoint inhibitor therapies, particularly those that target the immune checkpoints PD-1 and PD-L1. Preclinical testing of PY314 and PY159 has shown potential efficacy against solid tumors when they are combined with PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors, and Pionyr plans to file investigational new drug applications with the Food and Drug Administration in the third quarter of this year so that it can enter them into clinical trials. Gilead will be able to acquire the remainder of the company after Phase Ib results become available for either drug, or earlier if it decides to do so.
“The agreement represents important progress as we continue to build out Gilead’s presence in immuno-oncology with innovative and complementary approaches,” Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said in a statement. “We look forward to seeing the programs advance with the goal of developing new therapies that will improve the treatment of cancer.”
The move to acquire nearly half of Pionyr – and potentially the rest of it as well – marks Gilead’s second significant move into immuno-oncology this year. In March, it announced it would spend $4.9 billion to acquire Forty Seven, a company developing a cancer drug that targets the cell-surface protein CD47, completing the acquisition a month later. The company presented positive Phase Ib data for the drug, magrolimab, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting last month.
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