News (Updated September 9,
2007)
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Friday September 7, 6:31 pm ET
The analyst note follows Thursday's "Newsmakers in the Biotech Industry" conference in New York, where Gilead's head of commercial development, Kevin Young, presented an overall positive review of the company's HIV drugs and the related market.
Analyst Joel Sendek, who rates Gilead a "Buy", said in a note to clients that Gilead's share of the HIV market is 51.3 percent, according to August total NRTI prescription data.
Gilead makes HIV drugs Atripla, Truvada, Viread and Emtriva.
In addition, Sendek expects the share gain to continue primarily from patients switching from GlaxoSmithKline's Combivir HIV treatment.
Separately, Sendek pointed out that the company's newest drug arrival, Letairis to treat continuous high blood pressure in the pulmonary artery, "appears to be proceeding well," in part helped by a limited free one-month product offering.
Wed Sep 5, 4:42 PM ET
An experimental HIV drug from Merck & Co. Inc. should be quickly approved for use by patients running out of treatment options, federal advisers recommended Wednesday.
The panel of outside experts agreed unanimously that available data support accelerated approval of Isentress, also known as raltegravir, by the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA isn't required to follow the advice of its outside advisory panels but does so most of the time. Merck expects an agency decision by mid-October. If approved, Isentress would be the first in a new class of anti-retroviral drugs called integrase inhibitors.
The Merck drug targets integrase, one of three enzymes used by the virus to replicate and infect cells. The FDA previously has approved drugs that target the two other enzymes, protease and reverse transcriptase.
Isentress is meant to be used as part of a "cocktail" of drugs to fight HIV in patients who have developed a resistance to older medications. HIV — the human immunodeficiency virus — causes AIDS.
Last month, the FDA approved another novel HIV drug, Pfizer Inc.'s Selzentry. That drug is the first that works by blocking a crucial doorway, called the CCR5 receptor, that HIV often uses to enter white blood cells.