Is British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca interested in acquiring Gilead, an American pharmaceutical company that owns the potential drug remdesivir for treating COVID-19?

According to Bloomberg on June 7, citing people familiar with the matter, AstraZeneca and Gilead had preliminary contacts last month on a potential acquisition. If the deal is realized, it will be the largest pharmaceutical deal in history.

AstraZeneca China said it would not comment on current market rumors. As of press time, Gilead Sciences has not yet responded.

As of the close of trading on June 5, Eastern Time, Gilead Sciences had a total market value of approximately US$96.273 billion and AstraZeneca had a total market value of approximately US$141.331 billion.
According to AstraZeneca's 2019 financial report released on February 14, its total revenue was US$24.384 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10%. Among them, China's revenue was US$4.880 billion, a year-on-year increase of 35%, accounting for 20.7% of AstraZeneca's global total revenue. According to the financial report released by Gilead Sciences on February 4, Gilead Sciences' operating income in fiscal 2019 was US$22.449 billion, a year-on-year increase of 1.46%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company's common shareholders was US$5.386 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 1.26%.

AstraZeneca was formed in 1999 by the merger of the former Swedish Astra and the former British Zeneca. It is headquartered in the UK and entered China in 1993. It has multiple products in the fields of neurology, respiratory, digestive, cardiovascular/metabolic, oncology and anesthesia.
Gilead Sciences was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in the United States. It entered China in 2016. Its products cover AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, cardiovascular disease, cystic fibrosis, respiratory diseases and antifungal fields. It is worth mentioning that both AstraZeneca and Gilead Sciences have made investments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AstraZeneca is collaborating with Oxford University to develop a vaccine specifically for the treatment of COVID-19. If all goes well, AstraZeneca is expected to provide 30 million doses in September this year. In addition, on April 14, AstraZeneca also announced on its official website that it will launch a randomized, global clinical trial to evaluate the potential of the BTK inhibitor Calquence (acalabrutinib) in treating severe patients with COVID-19 infection accompanied by excessive immune response (cytokine storm).

Although the efficacy of Gilead Sciences' anti-COVID-19 drug remdesivir is controversial, it has been approved in Japan as the country's first drug for the treatment of COVID-19 infectious diseases. In the United States, it has obtained emergency use authorization from the FDA for the treatment of hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19.