Gilead Profit and Revenue Soar on AIDS Drug

Gilead Sciences Inc., a company focused on drugs for AIDS, reported a 63% increase in third-quarter sales Thursday and raised its revenue forecast for the year.

The Foster City, Calif.-based company said net income rose 55% in the quarter, driven by strong sales of its mainstay AIDS pill Viread.

The results were marred by news that Gilead had discontinued work on two potential AIDS drugs because of disappointing test results -- a setback for the company’s development program. One was a follow-on to Viread, one of the nation’s top-selling AIDS medications.

Net income was $113.2 million, or 25 cents a share, compared with $73.1 million, or 17 cents, in the year-earlier quarter. Wall Street had expected profit of 21 cents, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

Revenue rose to $326.2 million compared from $200.4 million.

For all of 2004, the company now expects sales of its AIDS drugs to range from $870 million to $890 million, up from a range of $850 million to $870 million. Gilead said sales of its antifungal drug Ambisome would be $195 million to $205 million.

Greg Wade of Pacific Growth Equities said Gilead’s results in general were strong. He said that Gilead would probably license drugs in development at other companies to replace the potential sales of the two drugs they canceled.

Gilead announced its results after the market closed. In regular Nasdaq trading, its shares fell $1.13 to $36.68. They dipped to $33.17 in after-hours trading.