Gilead’s profits have dropped approximately $1 billion, according to the company’s Q2 announcement Monday. Going from $4.5 billion in profits in 2015 to $3.5 billion in 2016, the second quarter earnings aren’t looking as bright as the company may have hoped.
It may come as no surprise to some after recent events, such as AHF’s ad campaign: “Gilead Scandal: Gay Men, We Don’t Care About Your Kidneys and Bones.” The ad campaign was to draw attention to the Gilead’s patent manipulation of its best-selling HIV drug, according to revelations in an LA Times article.
The press release on AHF’s ad campaign states:
The LA Times article cited in AHF’s ad details Gilead researchers’ early and promising clinical trials of TAF, a safer and more effective version of their existing HIV medication tenofovir. However, trials of the newer tenofovir compound were abruptly stopped by Gilead executives in 2004, a few years after they began, in order that Gilead could direct its R&D efforts toward “…other research.”
. . . In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, AHF alleges that Gilead halted its early research of TAF in order to extend its patent on its existing HIV medication, which yielded billions of dollars in annual sales.
Since that time, AHF has led a number of protests against the big pharma company.
The company’s total revenues also dropped from 2015 to 2016 in the second quarter: from $7.8 billion to $8.2 billion. Furthermore, product sales decreased by six percent.
According to FirstWord Pharma:
Sales of the company’s hepatitis C drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi fell to $4 billion from $4.9 billion in the same period last year, prompting Gilead to cut its 2016 product sales forecast to a range of $29.5 billion to $30.5 billion from its previous guidance of $30 billion to $31 billion.
In addition, the launch of cheaper genotype 1 hepatitis C treatments by AbbVie and Merck & Co. have forced Gilead to increase drug discounts, which have negatively impacted sales of Harvoni—reducing revenue by 28.9 percent.
Despite what may appear as a bleak outlook for Q3 and the remainder of 2016, the company is making progress in its hepatitis C treatment pipeline. According to reports, the FDA approved Epclusa for use in all hepatitis C genotypes.
To learn more about Gilead’s Q2 financial results, click here.
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Filed Under: Drug Discovery
