Gilead Pays $1.275 Billion for PepStar's Oral IL-23R Drug

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Gilead Sciences has agreed to acquire an oral IL-23R inhibitor program from PepStar Therapeutics, a privately held biotech company in the clinical stage. The lead asset is HCXT-2001, and Gilead gets worldwide rights to it.

The price is $1.275 billion in cash, paid up front at closing and subject to customary adjustments. Gilead expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, once customary conditions are met. In that quarter it expects the purchase to cut both GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per share by about $0.79 to $0.83.

An early-stage drug

HCXT-2001 is an investigational oral macrocyclic peptide with an extended half-life. It is in Phase 1, and its safety and efficacy have not been established.

The Phase 1 study, registered as NCT07792928, plans to enroll about 40 healthy adults. It looks at safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics. It is not yet recruiting, and no efficacy or clinical results have been reported.

Gilead sees a role for the drug in inflammatory bowel disease, and possibly in psoriasis. Its focus areas in inflammation are inflammatory bowel disease, type 2 inflammatory diseases, lupus and B cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.

Dietmar Berger, Gilead's chief medical officer, said the company sees potential for HCXT-2001 "alone or in combination" as a once-daily oral treatment for IBD, including with its candidate emvistegrast.

Haibing Guo, founder and CEO of PepStar, called the deal "a major milestone for our company."

Lazard advised Gilead, and Centerview Partners advised PepStar.

Source: Gilead Sciences