Replies to post #223506 on Biotech Values

[Rocky3]

HCV world-wide sales for 1Q18, 4Q18, 1Q19 and all of 2108:

--------1Q18-------/------4Q18------/------1Q19------/-------2018-------
GILD - 1,046 - 49.9% / 738 - 43.2% / 790 - 46.0% / 3,686 - 47.5%
ABBV - 919 - 43.8% / 862 - 50.5% / 815 - 47.4% / 3,616 - 46.6%
MRK - 131 - 6.25% / 108 - 6.3% / 114 - 6.6% / 455 - 5.9%


TOTAL - 2,096 / 1,708 / 1,719 / 7,757

The big news to me is that sales grew QOQ (less than 1%, but still grew). First time in several years. So maybe number of patients being treated are stable, price competition has subsided, or both. I'm very surprised that MRK is still a player at all, and its share actually increased slightly QOQ. GILD's share also increased and sales were up, even though it said that it treated fewer patients. My assumption therefore is that its net price per patient actually increased.

And the US commercial market script numbers have held up pretty well - see https://www.investorvillage.com/smbd.asp?mb=2629&mn=11866&pt=msg&mid=19336781

If the companies really think that the market will continue to exist for a while, maybe they will not compete on price so much. That could result in some nice upside surprises on revenue numbers. I doubt that it will happen but it is nice to dream.