AstraZeneca Reportedly Approaches Gilead for Potential Merger

JUN 8, 2020 AstraZeneca AZN approached Gilead Sciences GILD last month for a potential merger deal, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The report mentioned that no terms of the transaction were specified and the companies aren’t in formal talk, the people said.

If the two companies were to combine into one, it would be the biggest health-care deal ever, surpassing Bristol-Myers’ BMY $74 billion purchase of Celgene last year. The combined companies have a market cap of $236 billion as of Friday’s close.

The report also said that Gilead is presently not showing any interest in merging with any other large pharma company.

Related:
https://lifepronow.com/blog/2020/05/02/gileads-investigational-antiviral-remdesivir-receives-u-s-food-and-drug-administration-emergency-use-authorization-for-the-treatment-of-covid-19/

Gilead Announces Approval of Veklury® (remdesivir) in Japan

It seems AstraZeneca’s interest in Gilead is due to the latter’s investigational antiviral remdesivir, which is being developed in late-stage studies to treat COVID-19.

Also, the FDA has granted emergency-use authorization to Remdesivir to treat the disease. Remdesivir was previously under testing for Ebola virus.

Source: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/astrazeneca-reportedly-approaches-gilead-for-potential-merger-2020-06-08