GILD

[twil]

(07-29-2015, 09:07 AM)EricL Wrote:

(07-29-2015, 12:39 AM)earthtodan Wrote: BofA/Merrill still ranks it Underperform. They see the current cash haul as a temporary, and earnings falling over the next few years.

GILD still remains one of my largest positions.

Articles like this one keep me from thinking that this Hep C thing is any sort of temporary phenomenon.

Costly to Treat, Hepatitis C Gains Quietly in U.S.

Nice read.
I keep holding out hoping for a lower price but, every time I keep getting burned.

[Turvok]

Anyone see this?
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-med...-effective

I feel like this could definitely help out GILD. With the pull-back recently, one might be able to pick this up for under $100. Not the best dividend play, but potential growth

[twil]

I read that yesterday! I want to pull the trigger on GILD but just never had

[Dividend Watcher]

(09-09-2015, 08:28 PM)Turvok Wrote: Anyone see this?
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-med...-effective

I feel like this could definitely help out GILD. With the pull-back recently, one might be able to pick this up for under $100. Not the best dividend play, but potential growth

• The gay & bi population is estimated at around 3-4% of the U.S. population according to the last census. I would assume similar statistics throughout the world.
  
• Some (it could be argued that many, if not most, at-risk that can afford it) are already on maintenance or prophylaxis regimens.
  
• The majority of antiviral sales was comprised of Harvoni/Solvadi prescriptions.
  

I'm not sure this news will produce much more than a "blip on the radar" for sales.

This is not to say that GILD isn't worth due diligence and perhaps investing in if it meets your criteria. The have quite a few products in trial, one improved HIV treatment has just been given FDA approval recently, and some promising oncology treatments coming. In addition, they have a lot of cash available for acquisitions and research.

It wasn't that long ago when an HIV diagnosis was a death sentence. I lost my best friend from high school in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. It's too bad GILD didn't have its lifesaver "cocktails" on the market back then.

[Dash]

(09-10-2015, 12:05 AM)Dividend Watcher Wrote:

(09-09-2015, 08:28 PM)Turvok Wrote: Anyone see this?
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-med...-effective

I feel like this could definitely help out GILD. With the pull-back recently, one might be able to pick this up for under $100. Not the best dividend play, but potential growth

• The gay & bi population is estimated at around 3-4% of the U.S. population according to the last census. I would assume similar statistics throughout the world.
  
• Some (it could be argued that many, if not most, at-risk that can afford it) are already on maintenance or prophylaxis regimens.
  
• The majority of antiviral sales was comprised of Harvoni/Solvadi prescriptions.
  

I'm not sure this news will produce much more than a "blip on the radar" for sales.

This is not to say that GILD isn't worth due diligence and perhaps investing in if it meets your criteria. The have quite a few products in trial, one improved HIV treatment has just been given FDA approval recently, and some promising oncology treatments coming. In addition, they have a lot of cash available for acquisitions and research.

It wasn't that long ago when an HIV diagnosis was a death sentence. I lost my best friend from high school in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. It's too bad GILD didn't have its lifesaver "cocktails" on the market back then.

Half of the newly infected every year are heterosexuals.

[twil]

I was going to same something along the lines that not only gay people get aids, is this the 1980s still?

[Dividend Watcher]

Good point. The CDC reports this:

Quote:CDC estimates that approximately 50,000 people in the United States are newly infected with HIV each year. In 2010 (the most recent year that data are available), there were an estimated 47,500 new HIV infections. Nearly two thirds of these new infections occurred in gay and bisexual men.

But let's not pick the nits. I read an article a few years ago discussing the susceptibility of acquiring HIV. I can't find it now but, IIRC, it's much more difficult to actually become infected with HIV than other forms of transmissible blood-born diseases through sexual contact. What I am trying to say is it's much easier to contract hepatitis C through sexual contact and that GILD also has a product for.

Yes, it's great that Truvada has a prophylactic effect on HIV transmission and perhaps it will solidify their market share in the HIV community but I still don't think the market is that large that it will produce a large change in it's sales to make much of a difference in GILD's performance. Do you know any heterosexuals that are rushing or even thinking about going to their doctors to get a prescription "just in case"?

In the meantime, GILD will be selling a lot of Harvoni/Solvadi to treat the largest blood-born disease infection rate from, as best as I can tell from reading different sources, the world. With a P/E hovering around 12 and all that cash being thrown onto their books, I think the long-term outlook is bright. I'm beginning to believe that the market is not counting on any large increase in sales from Harvoni/Solvadi, which it may not. From my reading, it looks like governments and insurance companies are grouping their patients by risk and once the most urgent cases are cured, then they'll move on to the next group and so on. The large expense of R&D and acquisitions to bring them to market is already a sunk cost. All that's left is the comparatively small production costs. That steady stream of cash over the next few years give GILD a lot of room to pay the dividend and for their next round of products.

[EricL]

GILD announced a $10B debt offering this morning, which is pretty significant considering that is roughly 6% of the current market cap.

My guess is its for one of two things:

1. Accelerated share repurchases since the stock is trading at less than 10 times expected 2015 earnings.
2. Acquisition of another company to diversify growth prospects as GILD shares are too undervalued to do an equity deal and it doesn't have enough domestic cash on hand to do a large acquisition.

[rapidacid]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3504656-...on-in-debt

[Dividend Watcher]

Quote:It’s Friday. And according to the latest data for Gilead Sciences (GILD), hepatitis-C prescriptions continued to slow last week.

According to IMS, Harvoni prescriptions total fell 2% from the previous week to 7,333 during the week ended Sept. 4, while new prescriptions fell 3% to 2,672. Combined with Sovaldi, total hepatitis-C prescriptions fell 2% to 9,015, while new prescriptions declined 1% to 3,79.

RBC analyst Michael Yee estimates that U.S. hepatitis-C sales should come in at around $12.2 billion in 2015, just below the consensus for $12.7 billion.

From Barron's web site.

Not changing my theory and Ari's comments linked by Rapidacid just reinforced my thoughts.

[Dash]

Saw a commercial for Harvoni last night. Was watching a ball game with my pops, who is an MD. Unprovoked he said, "that is a wonderful wonderful drug". Asked why and he said "are you kidding me? its an incredibly effective treatment for a very difficult to treat disease, and has essentially no side effects. It's a life changing medicine."

Anecdote? Sure. But sometimes I like anecdotes about the companies I am interested in. A la Peter Lynch and his wife regarding the L'eggs product and his subsequent investment in Hanes.