Something happened with the guns from Gillead. Just checked on Yahoo the shares of Gilead and it is currently at 76.32 USD (I think the lowest value in the last 2 years). If they continue like this, there will be no longer money for buying the ammo.

Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD)
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NasdaqGS – NasdaqGS Real Time Price. Currency in USD
76.31-1.26 (-1.62%)
As of 2:38 PM EDT. Market open.

Gilead’s stock price (IMO) is suffering from a case of ‘bad math’. In the US alone, there are 3.5 million with Hep C – and the number is probably double that in all reality.

Currently, US health insurance companies are dropping like flies from the Obamacare exchanges, which means that although the rate of infection (thanks to, ignorance, an IV drug epidemic, and Gilead’s current predatory pricing) is increasing, it is impossible to increase treatment numbers because the (cash) pipelines are quickly drying up. Add to that increasing competition in the HCV market from Gilead’s big pharma competitors, and the writing is on the wall.

Just for fun – because it is unlikely to happen – lets say Gilead decided to lower the price of treatment to $100 a week for a 12 week course of treatment, from the current $7,830 a week, and the US government rolled out and HCV eradication program like it did with Polio and Smallpox eradication.

Dr Freeman has estimated the cost of making a full 12 week course of treatment at around $100. To keep the math simple, we’ll use that number as our cost figure. Then imagine that at a profit of $1,100 per treatment, Gilead sold 7 million treatments in the US alone.

That’s a return of 77 billion, on a what – $11 billion dollar investment? Gilead could scoop the competition, and completely capture the market.

Hell, if they could roll it out worldwide – that’s easily 180 million times $1,100.

Just my humble opinion, but this will happen eventually. Don’t know if the big phama bean counters read this blog, but if they do the answer to their profitability problems is all right there, as plain as the nose on their face.

Their problem is, they cant put their short sighted greed aside long enough to make their shareholders some real money!

I completely agree with regard to generics RHF. They are saving both our lives!

The sad fact is that at the rate people in the US are receiving treatment, most Americans currently infected with HCV will probably die of the disease without ever receiving treatment, and Gilead, and their big pharma competitors would no doubt allow it to happen.

For most of us, including myself, generics are the ONLY viable option. So glad I found my way here!

I’m not at all sure that big pharma shareholders would so quickly dismiss a worldwide HCV eradication rollout..

As for Gilead’s current share prices, the US insurance marketplace they were counting on to shore up profits is collapsing. Their current pricing and profit structure is a house built upon sand, and they know it.