AIDS Drug Sales Lift Gilead’s Earnings

Gilead Sciences Inc.’s second-quarter revenue jumped 34% on strong sales of drugs for hepatitis and AIDS, the company said Thursday.

Net income rose 11% to $111.5 million, or 49 cents a share, from $100.4 million, or 46 cents, a year earlier. Revenue climbed to $319.7 million from $238.9 million.

The Foster City, Calif.-based company blew away Wall Street’s forecast of 35 cents a share, according to a survey by Thomson First Call.

“It was an exceptional quarter,” said analyst Gregory Wade of Pacific Growth Securities.

Gilead released its results after the market close. The company’s shares rose as high as $63.70 in early after-hours trading after closing on Nasdaq at $59.50, up $1.25.

Gilead’s flagship product, an AIDS drug called Viread, continued to gain on a rival pill from Bristol Myers-Squibb & Co. Many AIDS patients take Viread as part of their daily drug cocktail, a combination of pills to treat the disease.

Sales of Viread climbed 18% to $197.2 million from $167 million in last year’s second quarter. The increase came at the expense of Bristol Myers’ Zerit, whose sales dropped 20% in the second quarter to $78 million from $98 million, the company reported Thursday.

Viread’s advantage is that it is a once-daily pill. Zerit must be taken twice daily.

Sales of Gilead’s Emtriva, another once-daily pill for AIDS, rose 37% in the second quarter to $16.5 million from $12 million a year earlier. Despite the year-old drug’s strong gain, Gilead has failed to make inroads against its rival GlaxoSmithKline’s Epivir, which had sales of $138 million in the second quarter. Nearly 40% of the 126,000 patients on Viread also take Epivir as part of their daily regimen. Gilead would like to switch those patients to a cocktail of Viread and Emtriva.

Gilead is awaiting government approval in September of a once-daily pill that combines its two AIDS medications. Wade of Pacific Growth Equities said the new pill would cannibalize some of Gilead’s existing sales but would give it a better shot at Glaxo’s Epivir franchise.