A laboratory technician visually inspects a vial filled with remdesivir of the investigational coronavirus disease drug (COVID-19) at a Gilead Sciences facility in La Verne, California.
Gilead Sciences | via REUTERS
Gilead Sciences sales fell 10% in the second quarter from a year earlier, as the coronavirus pandemic weakened demand for some of its medications, including some of its top hepatitis treatments.
The company, which released its earnings on Thursday, also took a hit from generic competitors, as well as its acquisition of cancer drug maker Forty Seven. Gilead’s shares fell 2% in off-hours trading.
Gilead’s total product sales fell 10% to $ 5.1 billion in the second quarter, down from $ 5.6 billion a year ago and less than the $ 5.31 billion analysts had expected. The company reported adjusted earnings of $ 1.11 per share, lower than the $ 1.45 per share projected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
“The impact of COVID-19 on Gilead’s business remains subject to a high degree of uncertainty given the unpredictable dynamics related to incidence, spread, and efforts to treat COVID-19 worldwide,” the company wrote in its statement of results.
The company said sales in its HIV drug business fell 1% to $ 4 billion in the second quarter. Sales of its HCV unit fell 47% to $ 448 million, as fewer people in the United States and Europe stayed home and had fewer health screenings due to the pandemic.
There are no FDA-approved medications for coronavirus, which has infected more than 16 million people worldwide and has killed at least 667,808, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
In May, the FDA granted Gilead’s antiviral drug a temporary emergency authorization authorization, allowing hospitals and doctors to use the drug in hospitalized patients with the disease, even though the drug has not been formally approved by the agency. The intravenous medication has helped shorten the recovery time of some hospitalized patients with Covid-19.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced on June 29 a deal that gives the US more than 500,000 courses of antiviral drug treatment for US hospitals through September. That represents 100% of Gilead’s projected production for July and 90% of its production for August and September, according to the agency.
Gilead is selling remdesivir for $ 520 per vial in the US to patients with private insurance and $ 390 per vial to federal insurance programs like Medicare and foreign countries. Most remdesivir-treated patients receive a five-day course of treatment with six vials of remdesivir, the company said.
That would raise the cost to $ 2,340 for foreign and American Medicare patients and $ 3,120 for American patients with private health coverage.
During a conference call discussing earnings, Gilead executives said they expect to sell 1 to 1.5 million courses of drug treatment this year.
They also said they continue to develop an inhaled version of the antiviral drug.
In June, the company announced that it would begin human testing for the inhaled version. The company cannot administer the drug in pill form because its chemical composition would affect the liver.
They will administer the medication through a nebulizer, a delivery device that can turn liquid medications into a mist.
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