Gilead To Invest $109M In Goldfinch Bio For Kidney Drug Collaboration

Gilead Sciences, Inc. GILD, which recently suffered setbacks in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis drug development and is left to contend with a maturing HIV franchise, is looking elsewhere to develop its product portfolio.

Gilead announced a strategic collaboration Wednesday with Goldfinch Bio for developing and commercializing a pipeline of therapeutics for diabetic kidney disease, or DKD, and certain orphan kidney diseases.

About The Move 

Goldfinch is a privately held biotech focusing on developing precision therapies for patients with kidney diseases.

The multiyear collaboration agreement vests Gilead with the exclusive options to license worldwide rights to certain products emerging from Goldfinch's registry of patients with kidney diseases, integrating genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic data with patient clinical profiles.

Also, Gilead will have exclusive option rights to products developed by Goldfinch by applying its biology platform of human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived kidney cells and kidney organoids.

Goldfinch will be responsible for discovery and developments until exclusive option rights are exercised, after which Gilead will assume the responsibility of development and commercialization.

The collaboration does not include Goldfinch's existing programs, GFB-887 and GFB-024.

The Details

The deal provides for $55 million in upfront payments to Goldfinch, including a $5-million equity investment and an additional $54 million to support the development of the Kidney Genome Atlas platform for DKD.

Goldfinch is also eligible to receive up to $1.95 billion in potential milestone payments and tiered royalties on sales.

Gilead shares have gained about 7 percent year-to-date, underperforming the nearly 10-percent gain for the iShares NASDAQ Biotechnology Index IBB.

Gilead shares were down 0.12 percent at $66.32 at the time of publication Wednesday. 

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