Whats the Deal, Gilead?
Gilead hasn’t always had the Sidam touch when it comes to M&As. Its 2001 acquisition of Triangle Pharmaceuticals for $464 million delivered the experimental nuke Emtriva that Gilead would so profitably combine with Viread to make Truvada. “That acquisition was one of the two or three best in all of pharma history,” says Leerink Swann’s Schimmer. “You now have to give the management team the benefit of the doubt.” In the past four years, however, Gilead has spent a total of $4.5 billion on four acquisitions, with little to show for it. In 2006, the biotech shelled out $2.5 billion to nab Myogen, whose drug for pulmonary hypertension, Letairis, was in line for FDA approval. But the presumed prize was Myogen’s other endothelin receptor antagonist, Darusentan, for the 2 million patients with untreatable high blood pressure. However, after two Phase III trials failed, Darusentan—and its blockbuster potential—were toast. In turn, the logic behind Gilead’s $1.4 billion purchase of CV Therapeu
