Replies to post #174665 on Biotech Values

[Rocky3]

Not sure why you put quotation marks around the word colossal insofar as GILD’s HIV franchise is selling at an annualized rate of $10B. However, in 2017 Viread will be off-patent in major jurisdictions and the longer-running patents covering Emtriva are weak.

1) The quotation marks were not to disagree that the HIV franchise is very large, but to emphasize that the HCV franchise will be colossal too, and very, very soon.

2) HIV sales may decrease from $11B+ in '16 to $7B+ in '20 according to several research reports than I have seen. Seems reasonable to me.

3) The HVC sales are projected to be larger than HIV in '18, but it sure looks like it might be in '15.

4) In addition, there seem to be many pipeline assets that have limited projected sales that might surprise on the upside.

5) My overall point remains - the reason to be bullish on GILD is the incredible potential of its HVC portfolio. And the potential is becoming actual results - results that may be better than all projections and assumptions. And if the size of the market is larger than previously thought, that should help ABBV/ENTA (and maybe BMY and others).