Gilead Sciences (GILD) reported a blowout quarter on Tuesday afternoon, topping consensus estimates across the board and possibly stopping the bleeding — at least temporarily — in biopharmaceutical stocks since Biogen’s (BIIB) ugly second quarter miss days ago. The beat, driven in-part by unexpected performance from the blockbuster hepatitis C treatments Harvoni and Sovaldi, will also temporarily quite those wondering whether Hep C sales were already topping out.
Gilead’s total revenue of $8.2 billion easily beat analyst consensus for $7.6 billion in the quarter, and EPS of $3.15 topped the $2.71 expected by the street. Sales Harvoni and Sovaldi globally came in at $3.6 and $1.29 billion in the quarter, respectively; Wall Street was looking for $3.36B and $951 million.
And, Gilead upped guidance for the year, from $28-29 billion in April to $29-30 billion.
Gilead ended the quarter with $14.7 billion in cash and equivalents, which will no doubt stoke the question on every biotech investor’s mind: when and what will Gilead buy? Gilead has suffered from a lagging P/E multiple compared to its biopharma peers all year, and we suspect it will take a big acquisition, or a major pipeline success (like from simtuzumab), to re-rate the stock.
Dr. Paul Nunzio De Santis was ahead of the street on most facets of GILD’s earnings in a primer for PropThink Premium members this past month, which proved prescient with Tuesday’s beat. Despite being ahead of the street already. Dr. De Santis’ $2.80-$3.05 EPS estimate was still behind Gilead’s reported numbers. Truly, 2Q15 was a blowout quarter.
