New York, Feb 24, 2026, 18:25 EST — After-hours
- Arcellx (ACLX) ended Tuesday right where it started, settling at $113.75. Shares ticked down slightly in after-hours, last changing hands at $113.70.
- Gilead is picking up Arcellx for $115 in cash, with an extra $5 on the table if anito-cel sales hit certain targets.
- Traders are keeping tabs on tender-offer filings, tracking antitrust review timing, and watching the FDA clock for anito-cel.
Arcellx finished Tuesday at $113.75, flat on the day, and then slipped a nickel to $113.70 after the bell—still parked just shy of Gilead’s $115 per share bid. Since the buyout was announced, the stock has surged roughly 77% from its Feb. 20 close.
Gilead on Monday announced it will buy Arcellx, Inc. for $115 a share in cash at closing, and toss in a $5 non-transferable CVR if anito-cel nets $6 billion in total global sales by 2029. Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said the company plans to “move with speed,” while Arcellx’s Rami Elghandour credited “innovation, passion, resilience and teamwork” for the agreement. Gilead
This marks Gilead’s largest deal since snapping up Immunomedics in 2020, underscoring a trend among pharma giants seeking early-stage oncology tie-ups, Reuters said. According to RBC Capital Markets’ Brian Abrahams, anito-cel might offer a “better safety profile” compared to Carvykti from Johnson & Johnson and Legend Biotech, which pulled in around $1.9 billion in sales in 2025. The acquisition also eliminates as much as $1.5 billion in potential milestone outlays for Gilead, BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman noted. Reuters
Anito-cel, a BCMA-directed CAR-T therapy designed to re-engineer a patient’s T-cells to target cancer, is in the mix for those with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Gilead said the FDA is moving ahead with the biologics license application and has put a PDUFA action date—its decision deadline—on the calendar for Dec. 23, 2026.
Gilead’s initial pitch came in at $98 a share on Feb. 13, according to a Schedule 13D filing, but both sides landed on $115 in cash per share by Feb. 22. Per the filing, the tender offer has to stay open for at least 20 business days and hinges on several conditions—among them, a majority of shares being tendered and the Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust waiting period ending or being terminated. The document also lists tender-and-support agreements with investors like SR One Capital, New Enterprise Associates, and Arcellx board members and executives, representing roughly 10.3% of outstanding shares as of Feb. 19.
ACLX hovered just below the cash portion of the deal, so the spread here looks tied mostly to time and execution risk—there’s no new read-through on the company’s pipeline. Gilead shares slipped roughly 1% Tuesday. The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF gained about 1.7%.
Arcellx and Gilead are staring down entrenched BCMA-targeted rivals in the multiple myeloma space. That detail is crucial for the CVR, which isn’t worth anything unless anito-cel racks up enough sales to cross that $6 billion mark by the close of 2029—and does it quickly.
Major biotech acquisitions are reappearing, with Gilead among several large pharma names eager to snap up late-stage assets for full control. According to the Financial Times, the Arcellx agreement marks an expansion of their 2022 collaboration and lines up with a broader move by big drugmakers to bolster their oncology offerings.
The tender offer remains on hold for now, and executives cautioned that delays are possible—everything depends on shareholders tendering sufficient shares, regulatory review moving on schedule, and no rival bidder entering the mix. Then there’s the CVR, which brings its own unpredictability: should anito-cel hit snags with approval, launch, or market traction, that promised $5 per share could simply evaporate.
Next up, Gilead is expected to launch the tender offer and release the full Schedule TO. Arcellx, for its part, will need to submit its Schedule 14D-9 recommendation. Outside the buyout mechanics, there’s just one fixed milestone everyone’s watching: the FDA’s Dec. 23, 2026 decision on anito-cel.
