Yahoo Finance

Well, Gilead Sciences out with first quarter earnings. The shares are slipping about 3%. Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani joining us now with the numbers. What stands out to you, Anj?

Well, definitely looking at Gilead in comparison to other pharmaceuticals which have already come out and reported. They did give us a beat on the numbers. Looking at the actual revenue 6.67 billion coming in uh instead of the estimated 6.79. So that was actually a miss there. But then on the adjusted earnings per share, definitely got a beat there. 1.81 instead of 1.76. Looking at where they sort of lost versus gained. Gilead is known for, of course, it's HIV portfolio and that really carried the company through this first quarter. We saw in particular Biktarvy, that is one of its key blockbusters, up 7% this quarter with 3.1 billion in total sales. And that's the majority of the portfolio, as well as the majority of the revenue that we saw for the quarter. Meanwhile, taking a look at, of course, the big thing that we want to talk about, tariffs. That is yet unknown. The company has been looking at what uh areas it could be impacted. But it's important to note that Gilead already has a lot of focus on the US. We actually heard from CEO Daniel O'Day on the earnings call saying that quote, the 2017 tax reform was instrumental in the company bolstering their US investment. And so Gilead is differentiated from its peers in that way, and that almost 100% of their R&D capital and infrastructure is in the US. That includes as well manufacturing, and they do have um a lot of their IP as well here. So that's not something that is a key concern for Gilead. They are also looking to build out a little bit more two facilities in particular that are already planned for build out uh through 2028. So that's where things stand for Gilead right now.

There's another, there's a deal, a potential deal in the pharma space we want to talk about as well. There's a company called Merck, that is not our Merck, is Germany's Merck, Merck KGaA, um that according to the Wall Street Journal is maybe nearing a deal to buy an American company called SpringWorks for 3 and a half billion dollars. And SpringWorks shares went up sharply today on this report. What is, what's, what does SpringWorks have?

Correct.

SpringWorks is an oncology company. I've actually spoken with the CEO in the past. So they have uh a good portfolio that's a match, apparently, with uh Merck KGaA's uh portfolio as well. What's really interesting about this deal and the reason why there's so much energy behind this is because it's a big deal in 2025, when we've been talking about repeatedly biotech on the decline. We've talked about how research and funding is really messing up things for biotech, as well as just general investor softness in this sector. And so this is why you're seeing that outside move for SpringWorks, and why it's such an interesting deal at such an interesting time.

And it's also interesting because the journal says that Merck, Germany's Merck had previously said it was going to buy it, and then it seemed like it backed off. So maybe now with all the market volatility it's a good time.

Yeah.

We'll see, we'll see if it gets confirmed this time.

That's right. They said it could be uh closing as early as Monday. So we'll have to stay tuned.

We'll see. Thanks, Anj. Appreciate it.