Gilead to buy Kite Pharma for about 12 billion dollars

Gilead Sciences Inc has agreed to buy immunotherapy developer Kite Pharma Inc in an all-cash deal valued at 11.9 dollars billion, the companies said.

Gilead will pay 180 dollars per share, representing a 29.4 percent premium over Kite's Friday close.

Gilead's growth has been fueled by its pricey but revolutionary hepatitis C drugs but with fewer eligible patients and rising competition, sales have begun to fall.

Wall Street and Gilead shareholders have long been expecting the company to use its cash pile for a big-ticket acquisition to reinvigorate its sales growth.

The deal, which has been approved by the boards of both companies, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Kite is one of the leading players in an emerging field called CAR-T, or chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, which harnesses the body's own immune cells to recognize and attack malignant cells.

If approved by the FDA, CAR-T therapies could cost up to 500,000 dollars and generate billions of dollars for their developers, analysts expect.

Kite Pharma's experimental drug axi-cel is under expedited U.S. review for advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma, with additional trials under way in leukemia patients.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the deal on Monday.

Kite's shares were halted in premarket trading on Monday, while Gilead's shares were up 2.7 percent.