Gilead Sciences and Assembly Biosciences Partner on Herpes Treatment: What You Need to Know
News broke yesterday that Gilead Sciences (@gileadsciences), a pharmaceutical company, and Assembly Biosciences (@assemblybio), a biopharmaceutical company, entered into a 12-year partnership focusing on herpesviruses and viral hepatitis. Gilead will provide Assembly with $100 million, which includes $84.8 million upfront.
Assembly’s current pipeline, per its website, shows two potential candidates for herpes viruses, including one specifically for HSV-2.
I share this as a reminder, as with the additional herpes funding and attention from the National Institutes of Health, that herpes is a part of the big business of big pharma. An article from Grand View Research notes that the global treatment size was valued at $1.54 billion in 2022 and “is expected at a compound annual growth rate of 9.24% from 2023 to 2030.”
Just another example that we’ll likely continue to see more and more of these pharmaceutical deals (especially now with the NIH’s Strategic Herpes Research Plan).