FDA advisory thumbs up for Gilead's once-daily Quad for HIV

There was more good news for Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD), the world’s largest maker of HIV drugs, when the company said that the US Food and Drug Administration’s Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee on Friday voted 13 to one to support approval of its Quad, a complete single tablet regimen of elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in treatment-naive adults. Gilead’s shares closed up 1.2% at $51.84 after the committee voted.

The outcome was largely expected given positive briefing papers a couple of days earlier. Thomas Russo, an analyst at RW Baird quoted by Forbes Magazine, said Quad is arguably the most important product for Gilead to sustain its dominant, market-leading franchise well into the next decade, and one that will improve margins at the same time.

Quad could seek peak sales of $4 billion a year