AstraZeneca reportedly eyed a merger with Gilead. But does 'Gileaz' make sense?

Six years ago, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot fought off Pfizer’s $118 billion takeover attempt. Now, the defender is reportedly playing offense, going after a deal of similar size.

The British pharma informally approached Gilead Sciences last month to gauge its interest in a merger, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Gilead, whose stock price has climbed about 17% this year on news its remdesivir can tackle the novel coronavirus, was worth $96 billion at Friday’s close. AstraZeneca, with a University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine project, comes with a market cap of about $140 billion. At the current value, the deal, if completed, would set a new record for pharma M&A, eclipsing Bristol Myers Squibb’s $74 billion acquisition of Celgene last year.