Ep. 357 - Deal-O-rama, Gilead and Tallon's U.K. vision

March 30, 2026·29 min·2 clips

Merck proposes a $6.7 billion buyout of Terns, while Gilead eyes a deal with Oro as the UK overhauls clinical trial rules.

1. BioCentury This Week host Jeff Cranmer covers a week of biotech M&A and UK regulatory reform with Simone Fishburne, Paul Bananos, and Lauren Martz. 2. Paul Bananos is BioCentury's daily news editor and lead deals writer; Lauren Martz covers biopharma intelligence with a focus on oncology and immunology; Simone Fishburne is editor-in-chief. 3. The episode examines whether a flurry of deals—Merck-Terns, Gilead-Uro, plus smaller acquisitions by Novartis and Otsuka—signals a sustained M&A environment or a late-cycle surge. 4. Merck paid $6.7 billion for Terns Pharmaceuticals, whose lead asset Turn 701 targets BCR-ABL in chronic myelogenous leukemia with an allosteric mechanism designed to avoid the pancreatic toxicity, blood pressure changes, and food effects that appear on Novartis' Scemblix label. 5. Paul Bananos frames the Terns deal as part of Merck's Moneyball strategy: having already spent close to $20 billion on Verona (COPD) and Sedara (infectious disease), Merck is assembling assets to replace Keytruda revenue piecemeal ahead of patent expiry. 6. Gilead proposed to acquire Uro, a NUCO (new company formed to globalize an Asian asset) backed by Monograph, TPG Life Sciences, NEA, and Norwest, for $1.7 billion upfront; Uro's program is a CD3/BCMA T-cell engager in phase 1-2 for inflammatory conditions including Sjogren's syndrome and bullous pemphigoid. 7. The deal's complexity comes from Gilead's existing 25% stake in Galapagos and two board seats: Gilead and Galapagos are negotiating to integrate Uro's employees into Galapagos and split the T-cell engager's development costs, giving Galapagos's cash pile a pipeline asset to advance. 8. Lauren Martz notes that Gilead's INI strategy has been rebuilding since setbacks in the 2015 filgotinib collaboration and subsequent Galapagos programs; the CMO cited IBD (two phase 2 programs for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's), CymaBay's Livdelzy for primary biliary cholangitis, and the new T-cell engager as pillars of a rebuilt INI portfolio. 9. Kite's Yescarta (CD19 CAR-T) and Immunomedics' Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan, an ADC being moved into earlier lines for triple-negative breast cancer) are identified as Gilead's two most successful M&A outcomes, with Trodelvy's peak potential still to be reached. 10. Smaller Friday deals included Accelergy's Stanford-spun INI program (food allergy, hives) going to Novartis for $2 billion including milestones, and Transcend's PTSD therapy acquired by Otsuka for $700 million upfront plus $525 million in milestones. 11. The week's four deals from Wednesday to Friday totaled roughly $10 billion upfront; Tang Capital's Orinia acquired Kezar Life Sciences in a deal that may be a cash-preservation buy rather than pipeline advancement. 12. Paul Bananos highlights Qimed as a Chinese company behind multiple NUCO deals including Uro, and names Jiangsu Hengrui (100 innovative molecules in pipeline) as another Chinese company generating significant Western partnership activity. 13. Simone Fishburne reports on MHRA CEO Lawrence Tallon's clinical trial reform package, described as the UK's biggest overhaul in 20 years, effective April 8th: 14-day first-assessment guarantee for Phase 1 trials, and a notifiable scheme where low-risk trials already approved by a reference regulator (US, EU, or Australia) can start within 14 days of MHRA submission if no objection is received. 14. The overall MHRA target is 150 days from first application to first patient; MHRA has already met or beaten its 60-day portion of that target, but the remainder depends on NHS trusts and other bodies outside Tallon's direct authority. 15. The UK's single-payer NHS structure enables a single national site contract template, eliminating the back-and-forth contract negotiation that currently delays sponsor-site agreements at each individual hospital. 16. An aligned pathway runs NICE (health technology assessment for NHS coverage) and MHRA (regulatory approval) in parallel rather than sequentially, with government incentives for both bodies to coordinate from early development. 17. Tallon's strategic goal is to position MHRA approval as a gateway to other regulatory jurisdictions through mutual recognition alliances, converting the UK's 3% global drug market share into access to a substantially larger combined market. 18. The episode is concise, analytical, and deal-focused with clean transitions between M&A analysis and regulatory policy; tone is collegial and expert-to-expert. 19. Biotech investors, BD professionals, and clinical operations executives tracking UK regulatory reform and mid-size pharma M&A strategy will find this episode directly useful. 20. Listeners without context on Keytruda's patent situation, the Galapagos-Gilead history, or UK regulatory frameworks will need background to follow the deal analysis.

As heard by us

A sharp look at biotech dealmaking and the policy shifts that may change it.

BioCentury This Week keeps its focus on where biotech capital is moving, and it uses a burst of deal news to frame the conversation. It moves through Merck's proposed $6.7 billion bid for Terns and Gilead's proposal to buy Oro with Galapagos, then connects the Gilead thread to a…

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