Gilead has struck a deal to buy Germany-based Tubulis for $3.15 billion upfront and up to $1.85 billion in milestones, securing an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidate that is racing toward pivotal trials.
Tubulis partnered with Gilead in 2024, granting the company access to its platforms and agreeing to collaborate on an ADC program. Gilead paid $20 million and committed $415 million in milestones for that collaboration, which came about 18 months after Bristol Myers Squibb paid $22.7 million to team up with Tubulis. Flying high in the hot ADC field, Tubulis raised a €344 million ($401 million) series C round last year.
Now, Gilead has struck a deal to buy Tubulis, extending a deal spree that has seen the company agree to pay $7.8 billion for Arcellx and $1.67 billion for Ouro Medicines in recent months. The flurry of activity began shortly after CEO Daniel O’Day told the J.P.Morgan Healthcare Conference in January that Gilead was approaching dealmaking from a “position of strength.”
In Tubulis, Gilead has identified a biotech capable of expanding the ADC foothold it secured in 2020 by acquiring Immmunomedics for $21 billion. The earlier deal gave Gilead control of the anti-TROP-2 ADC Trodelvy.
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Tubulis’ most advanced candidate is TUB-040, a NaPi2b-directed topoisomerase-I inhibitor ADC that is in phase 1b/2 development for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC) and non-small cell lung cancer. Last year, Tubulis reported a 59% overall response rate in PROC, leading the biotech to outline plans to move quickly into pivotal trials while expanding into earlier stages of disease and additional tumor types.
Gilead will throw its clinical development muscle behind the program, potentially accelerating an asset that has so far avoided the problems that thwarted earlier attempts to aim ADCs at NaPi2b. Roche, Mersana Therapeutics and Zymeworks have axed or paused NaPi2b-directed ADCs over the past decade, in many cases because clinical readouts have fallen short of expectations.
The promise shown by TUB-040 supports Tubulis’ claims that its technology can expand the therapeutic window, delivering tumor-destroying efficacy without causing intolerable side effects. Gilead plans to tap into the technology by running Tubulis as a dedicated research organization, with the acquired Munich, Germany site serving as a hub for ADC innovation.
