We talked about it here before coping a transcript from Gilead, Conference call I believe, but searching for it I did find this interesting mention of needing late stage buildup and IM talk. I will search for the other, mentioning their injectable needing partner.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4268488-gile...art=single
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4268488-gile...art=single
Quote:Michael Yee
Okay. Let's obviously hit on HIV. A competitor recently launched a new product out there. They're talking about long acting injectables. Wall Street is unclear what the durability of your franchise looks like over the next five, six, seven, eight years. Do you feel confident about, a) not only the near-term and mid-term growth trajectory of where Biktarvy is going to take you, b) that competitors are not going to have a meaningfulness impact, we should be worried about in the near and mid-term and see that the longer term durability of the franchise will be okay. It's an [indiscernible] situation.
Daniel O'Day
Absolutely. So, look I think one of the pride points of joining Gilead was to see how they transform this disease over the past two decades with waves -- I call it waves of innovation from two drug therapies to three drug therapies to single pill regimens to prevention. And I think it's impressive both from a historical perspective, but it's also impressive to see the work that the team is doing back at Gilead to think about the next wave as well.
So, first of all, let's talk about the current wave. Biktarvy is without a doubt the most successful HIV launch in the United States and certainly on that track in Germany and France. And we expect to launch in other countries later this year. So there's no question about the power of that product profile, the convenience for HIV patients and the longer term growth potential for that.
Likewise having paved the way for Truvada for PrEP and actually one of the first meetings I had that pleasure of being at when I joined Gilead was to go up to CROI in Seattle and see the Descovy data presented there, which again when we think about the transformation of this disease from a death sentence to a long-term chronic illness. We're now approaching things in this disease that we never thought we would be approaching, right? People on therapy for 30, 40 years longer term effects. How do we handle the over 50-year old population? And therefore having cleaners safety profiles like Descovy presents for PrEP is a really meaningful advancement. And of course, we're looking forward to the approval for that hopefully later this year. So I think there's no doubt that the current generations of products that are rolling out are a true advancement on what's been -- had in the past. And the colleagues are not resting. So we have now long acting programs.
You saw some of the [capsule] [ph] data, which is I think very intriguing and we're now in a Phase 1b for that. We have other programs looking at the cure. And they're just -- a relentless focus at Gilead on making sure that we think about this in the long-term. So, yes, the answer to the question is, I'm very confident that our long-term leadership position in HIV will continue.
Michael Yee
Okay. Maybe in the last minute or show, your background in your tenure at Roche obviously well-known pharmaceutical behemoth and you're coming over here and now to Gilead. People wonder about your philosophy or Gilead's philosophy on M&A. And how urgent or important this is going to be in terms of the puzzle pieces for you over the next few years? Wasn't necessary a lot of M&A done at Roche, but Gilead's got a huge balance sheet. So how should Wall Street's expectations be appropriately put in place for M&A and building out the pipeline over the next year or two, we should be patient or but it's important that you get that you want to convey that to everybody or what should our expectations be?
Daniel O'Day
Yes. Well, let me first of all say what I repeated on the first quarter call, which I think I've really had some terrific conversations with investors over the course of the past few months. Some differing opinions, but a lot of harmony around the belief in Gilead Sciences desire to understand better about what's happening with the portfolio particularly in the short-term and I get that.
And therefore, when I think about capital allocation at Gilead, I think in this priority first and foremost when we have sensible value creating M&A that will be number one on my capital priority list returning proceeds to shareholders through dividends, number two, and then, continuing in sensible buyback programs is number three. So with M&A it's a type of our capital allocation list you can imagine it's been a decent amount of time with that. Now back to what the philosophy and priorities are, I've actually seen that the philosophies of both my previous company and this company are broadly aligned and that is that M&A should be driven first and foremost by science. And here I think Gilead has everything to show for that in terms of the work they've done in both HIV and HCV. So I think that's been kept tight.
And secondly, of course, concentrating on the areas that we know best, lots of early to mid-stage collaborations and acquisitions and yet being very aware of the fact that we need to build up our late stage portfolio. Now, as usual I think we have to approach that with the right level of scrutiny on late stage assets that I can assure you that both in terms of acceleration of our internal pipeline when we see things we can accelerate to fill that and looking for later stage assets externally. It's a heavy focus for us and we'll continue. But, we will be disciplined about that. And we'll make sure we do it in areas where we think we can really make a difference. So, more to come on it. I think you'll see through some of the early actions that we would take. It's always better to put these things into actions than words at the end.
