GH-31

Gilead is buying the global rights to an oral cancer drug from Genhouse Bio, a China-based biotech that filed for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last month. The California drugmaker is dishing out $80 million upfront for GH31, a MAT2A-targeted synthetic lethality drug for select solid tumors. MAT2A plays a role in metabolic regulation and can be overexpressed in cancer cells. Genhouse could get up to $1.45 billion in biobucks, the company announced Friday on WeChat. A Gilead spokesperson confirmed the deal terms to Endpoints News. The deal gives Gilead access to another oral cancer treatment, after it inked pacts with Kymera and Repare in recent months. Much of the biotech’s oncology focus in recent years, though, has been in cell therapy, antibody-drug conjugates and other antibody-based medicines. Genhouse’s GH31 has gotten clinical trial clearance in both the US and China. The biotech planned to start a Phase 1 in China in the first quarter of this year, it said in its IPO paperwork last month. “The addition of GH31 reflects our disciplined approach to expanding Gilead’s oncology pipeline through innovative science and strong partnerships,” Jackson Egen, Gilead’s SVP of oncology research, said in Genhouse’s announcement. Gilead’s oncology revenues shrank about 2% from 2024 to 2025, the company disclosed during earnings earlier this week. HIV remains its biggest unit. “Unlike the Gilead of 2019, business development is not make-or-break for the story,” BMO analysts wrote in a note after earnings this week. “We’d like to see investment in core areas: liver disease, oncology, and inflammation (although this one seems to be less of a focus recently).” A few drugmakers are working in the MAT2A area, including BeOne Medicines and Ideaya Biosciences. GSK previously partnered with Ideaya on a MAT2A program but pulled out from it in 2022. Going to China Gilead’s Genhouse pact marks at least the 17th deal between a China-based drug developer and a Western biopharma so far this year, according to an Endpoints tally. Gilead has made fewer deals with China-based biotechs than its large pharma peers, some of which have done multiple licensing and collaboration pacts in the region. Last October, Gilead’s cell therapy unit Kite Pharma agreed to a $120 million upfront and up to $1.52 billion biobucks deal with Shenzhen-based Pregene Biopharma in the hot area of in vivo cell therapies. In 2024, Gilead made an antibody deal with Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals for undisclosed terms. That same year, Gilead split from its cell therapy joint venture with Fosun Pharma in China. Genhouse’s pipeline is focused on oncology. Its most advanced drug, GH21, inhibits SHP2. A Phase 3 trial in China is slated for 2027. It aims to gain conditional approval in 2028 for patients with KRAS G12C inhibitor resistance, according to its IPO pitch. The biotech’s pipeline also includes oral small molecule cancer medicines going after the targets ERK1/2, PRMT5, KIF18A, WRN and DHX9. Genhouse disclosed a 300 million RMB (about $43 million) crossover financing last month. The content above comes from the network. if any infringement, please contact us to modify.