Gilead acquires CymaBay Therapeutics for $4.3 billion

Gilead announced on Monday that it will buy CymaBay Therapeutics for $4.3 billion. The deal includes seladelpar, CymaBay’s small-molecule candidate to treat primary biliary cholangitis.

Primary biliary cholangitis is a chronic condition in which the bile ducts in the liver become inflamed and are eventually destroyed altogether. Seladelpar targets PPARδ, a transcription factor present in multiple liver cells.

CymaBay says that seladelpar reduces inflammation and also reduces the amount of bile created, minimizing its toxic effects on the liver. The US Food and Drug Administration accepted Cymabay’s new drug application for seladelpar, according to a press release from CymaBay that was published on the same day as the deal with Gilead was announced.

Seladelpar originated at Janssen before it was licensed by CymaBay in 2006. back when the firm was called Metabolex. The firm’s name changed in 2013, when it completed a restructuring and jettisoned drug discovery efforts to focus on its three existing product candidates, including seladelpar.

The firm suffered another setback when, in a phase 2b trial for seladelpar in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, biopsies of liver tissue from patients suggested that the drug may have been causing tissue damage. However, a panel of independent experts concluded that there was no evidence the molecule was at fault.

“The acquisition by Gilead represents a poetic closure to the CymaBay story,” said Andy Hsieh in a research note from William Blair, praising the company’s “resilience and persistence.”