Nearly four years into Gilead Sciences Inc.'sera, the biopharmaceutical giant isn't ready to declare victory as it transitions to a more diverse portfolio of drugs. But don't mistake Chairman and CEO O'Day's message as he looks back at his nearly four-year tenure:"Gilead is in a very different place than we were three years ago."
Before O'Day arrived from Roche in March 2019 and remade the executive team, Gilead was best known for its life-changing portfolio of HIV drugs and its controversially priced hepatitis C drugs that turned the chronic viral illness into a curable disease.
In the meantime, the company is expected to continue spending on discovery and development of new drugs, aiming at more than 50 planned or active cancer trials by the end of this year andTrodelvy sales increased 79% year-over-year to $680 million last year, and Gilead's cancer cell therapy product sales increased 68% to $1.5 billion.
Meanwhile, sales of remdesivir — one of the first drugs for Covid-19, branded as Veklury — saw sales decrease 30% to $3.9 billion. It has been used in 60% of hospitalized Covid patients in the United States, O'Day said, and more than 12 million worldwide. The company now is investing in oral Covid therapies, seeing the pandemic moving to endemic.said, has had"a longer product life than we initially thought since Covid is here to stay.