Avid Bioservices Inc (CDMO)

[north40000]

It may be time for GILD to visit[again?] PPHM, or vice versa.

Igonber on BTV board transcribed the following excerpt from GILD's CSO Dr. Bischofberger interview at GS Health Care conference:

"GILD revelations at yesterday´s GS conference.
They were very clear they are evaluating companies/compounds/programs to build up their ONCOLOGY franchise (not in NASH so ICPT or Genfit are out of the picture of possible BO)"
Transcript:
"with our cash flow we're able to thankfully to both fund our internal programs, but also look for external opportunities and I am spending about 30% of my time, but we look at external opportunities. And as we have said, I have said and as well as our CEO, John Milligan has said if we find the opportunity where the science is right, the price is right, and the organizational fit is right, then we will embark on that.
In terms of NASH I think we don’t have a need anymore because we have four different mechanisms that are all in clinical development and we think that will suffice for now. The biggest need I would say or the need where we are looking into is in oncology because I think we have to fully build out the oncology branch as we need a few more development programs or products."

The GS interview earlier this week should be available here, or else from Gilead web site. The 1st 8 minutes or so is where the above excerpt can be heard---I think I heard 200 employees now engaged in oncology; R&D in HCV is finished, on to HBV now:

https://cc.talkpoint.com/gold006/060716b_ae/?entity=17_S5GURFS

GILD's current oncology pipeline, available on its website as well as visible to us at ASCO this past weekend, appears to be larger than what I recall seeing at AACR 2015. Listen to Dr. B's description of what he saw in sitting through ASCO presentations Sunday afternoon. Like us, he concluded help is needed to achieve larger response rates in current immunotherapy.

GS-5745, GS-0387 and GS-5829 are in current trials for solid tumors, including Gastric cancer, NSCLC, pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer.