Under intense shareholder pressure to do a deal and in an attempt to replace declining sales from its hepatitis C (HCV) franchise, Gilead agreed to acquire Kite Pharma. With a total deal value of US$11.9 B, Gilead will pay US$180 per share at a premium of 29% prior to the announcement of the deal. It will give Gilead access to Kite’s chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) programmes with the lead candidate, axicabtagene ciloleucel, which is under regulatory review by the US FDA and EMA for the treatment of refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).