Anyone buying Gilead stock?

[Snydley]

The next remdesivir trial results to be announced at the end of May- this time the subjects are moderately ill and hospitalized with COVID-19. I expect the results to be better than with the severely ill patients.

[bjl584]

Looks like they've had a nice run up since FEB.
Not sure if they have much left even with a breakthrough drug.
P/E looks on the lower side of average for the sector.

It's a gamble at best.
If their new drug flops then they could retest the lows on the $60's.
If it works you must see the stock go to $100.

Decent dividend if you are looking for income.

I'll be staying clear of this one.
I think there are better investments out there without so much uncertainty

[rennigade]

Nope. Not allowed since the wife works for the FDA. Cant invest in pharma companies.

[disneysteve]

Nope. Not allowed since the wife works for the FDA. Cant invest in pharma companies.

How picky do they get with that? The big pharma companies are in the major indexes. Are you only restricted from direct investments in individual companies?

[rennigade]

How picky do they get with that? The big pharma companies are in the major indexes. Are you only restricted from direct investments in individual companies?

They only care about single stocks in companies. Thankfully, they dont care about index funds.

[disneysteve]

They only care about single stocks in companies. Thankfully, they dont care about index funds.

It would be pretty impossible to include funds. Any major stock index includes a bunch of pharma and biotech companies.

[Singuy]

No I stay away from any Covid related stocks as these are 1x events with return on investment VERY questionable. My hospital of 800 beds have 1 positive Covid pt left. The numbers are dropping fast so already if the drug comes out tomorrow, it'll already have a hard time making the money back required to just break even from R&D.

This is my take, when investing in pharmaceuticals, invest in cash cow drugs. This mean long term use drugs that doesn't treat the problem (that many people have)but just the symptoms. Don't ever invest in these 1 time gamble drugs in which after it gets approved, stock might shot up for a day and then it's a game of everyone heading for the exit when they take profit. Always think long term when investing guys.

[disneysteve]

No I stay away from any Covid related stocks as these are 1x events with return on investment VERY questionable. My hospital of 800 beds have 1 positive Covid pt left. The numbers are dropping fast so already if the drug comes out tomorrow, it'll already have a hard time making the money back required to just break even from R&D.

This is my take, when investing in pharmaceuticals, invest in cash cow drugs. This mean long term use drugs that doesn't treat the problem (that many people have)but just the symptoms. Don't ever invest in these 1 time gamble drugs in which after it gets approved, stock might shot up for a day and then it's a game of everyone heading for the exit when they take profit. Always think long term when investing guys.

I don't disagree overall, but you're also assuming COVID is done and over with. Cases are still rising in some places and we fully expect there to be a second wave. If an effective vaccine doesn't come out by next year, which is very possible, we could be dealing with additional waves of this. We don't yet know if having it once makes you immune or if you can get it repeatedly. And even if they do come up with a vaccine, we still need effective treatments as no vaccine is 100% effective. We've got a flu vaccine but they still sell plenty of Tamiflu and now Xofluza. So a good COVID drug could do very well over time.

My hospitals have 277 COVID patients as of today.

[Singuy]

I don't disagree overall, but you're also assuming COVID is done and over with. Cases are still rising in some places and we fully expect there to be a second wave. If an effective vaccine doesn't come out by next year, which is very possible, we could be dealing with additional waves of this. We don't yet know if having it once makes you immune or if you can get it repeatedly. And even if they do come up with a vaccine, we still need effective treatments as no vaccine is 100% effective. We've got a flu vaccine but they still sell plenty of Tamiflu and now Xofluza. So a good COVID drug could do very well over time.

My hospitals have 277 COVID patients as of today.

It's not that I assume Covid will be gone. But a drug used to treat moderate to severe pt in which only about 5% of those infected will receive the med doesn't really have a lot of good return on capital. The vaccine can reduce Covid dramatically which means only a small fraction of the pt will actually receive the medication as time goes by.

The peak of this drug's usage may be BEHIND us. We may have a second wave which may be smaller than our first wave due to social distancing measures and people generally taking more care. Also schools and mass gatherings will continue to be limited until we have a vaccine out. So I don't see much usage for this drug. Places that would require such drugs on mass scale may be poorer countries like India or places in South America, in which I don't see much of a return on capital either.

[Snydley]

Vaccines for respiratory viruses typically don't work that well (compared to some others) and I don't think SARS-CoV-2 is going anywhere anytime soon. While it seems to be far more prevalent in the community than previously thought, as DS mentioned, we don't know if immune responses from recovered people will protect them for long, or at all. Also, if recovered patients are reinfected within a few months, don't expect a vaccine to ever work well for this virus. Billions were spent to develop a HIV vaccine and I remember an immunologist saying once that there has never been a vaccine developed that is more effective that natural immunity.

On the other hand, I think anti-virals can be a complete game changer for COVID-19. It is likely that remdesivir (if further trial results are promising) will ultimately be used in combination with drugs that target other ways the virus replicates, and this can lead to effective treatments to be taken at diagnosis to prevent illness and spread of disease. This type of medication, called combination anti-viral therapy, completely changed the impact of HIV infection on people with access to the medications, and from what I am hearing from virologists, this virus should be easier to target with these medications than HIV.

I was just wondering if others think this could equate to a huge increase in stock value for Gilead.

[disneysteve]

Snydley, I agree. Viral vaccines aren't always great. Some, like the chicken pox vaccine, are about 85% effective, which is great. And those who were vaccinated and still contract the disease tend to have more mild cases. The problem with other viral vaccines, like the seasonal flu shot, is that the virus mutates so rapidly. By the time the vaccine is produced and distributed, the strains circulating in the population may not match up with those contained in the vaccine. It's too soon to know what the case will be COVID. Some years the flu shot is only about 30% effective.

But as I said earlier, having an effective treatment will be huge, especially in the absence of an effective vaccine. I prescribe a ton of Tamiflu every flu season. If COVID hangs around and becomes an ongoing issue, we would prescribe a ton of whatever med treats it.

I have no idea what that will do to Gilead stock though. I'm not going to run out and buy any personally, though it might be held in my healthcare fund. I'd have to check.

[Singuy]

Vaccines for respiratory viruses typically don't work that well (compared to some others) and I don't think SARS-CoV-2 is going anywhere anytime soon. While it seems to be far more prevalent in the community than previously thought, as DS mentioned, we don't know if immune responses from recovered people will protect them for long, or at all. Also, if recovered patients are reinfected within a few months, don't expect a vaccine to ever work well for this virus. Billions were spent to develop a HIV vaccine and I remember an immunologist saying once that there has never been a vaccine developed that is more effective that natural immunity.

On the other hand, I think anti-virals can be a complete game changer for COVID-19. It is likely that remdesivir (if further trial results are promising) will ultimately be used in combination with drugs that target other ways the virus replicates, and this can lead to effective treatments to be taken at diagnosis to prevent illness and spread of disease. This type of medication, called combination anti-viral therapy, completely changed the impact of HIV infection on people with access to the medications, and from what I am hearing from virologists, this virus should be easier to target with these medications than HIV.

I was just wondering if others think this could equate to a huge increase in stock value for Gilead.

5 year return looks terrible. It's a 100 billion dollar company so you will have to look into the revenue source, it's operating expenses, and how much revenue you think this drug can pull in. Also look into why the long term decline from over 100 dollars over the last 5 years.

Do some of that research vs hopes and dreams on one drug that may or may not be in frequent use. Also all the positive news about the drug has been baked in so much of the run up you already missed out on. And make no mistake many are playing this stock just for that one trial so profit taking is absolutely a thing here. This is why I don't deal with short term stocks. You can get in the wrong time and catch yourself bag holding for 5 more years.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Hell no. It took me years and I finally got out of our other pharma stock. Because I hadn't been watching I was just hoping to break even. With this april bump I managed to snag a $100 profit? On something I held for about 8 years. NO EFFING way am I getting into pharma crap. It turns on a dime. It's impossible to predict where trials are going. Things drop out in phase 2 easily if they make it that far. NO absolutely not investing in something that is so subjective. Besides the point we have no idea of the return on investment. Long term I think pharma is dying and so does DH. We both worked in pharma which is how we got out stocks. Anyway that being said hell no because we believe that if universal medicine ever comes it'll decimate the pharma industry. Right now the US is where drugs are developed and sold and made because it's lucrative. Every other country in the world buys drugs pennies on the dollar because of universal care so the government refuses to pay more than X. Besides the fact there are a lot of pharma companies going abroad because it's cheaper to outsource to wuhan.

Pharma is a rough place to invest in. It's a lot of gambling. I wont' even own pfe, merk, jnj, novartis, sanofi, etc I don't care about those dividends. There is too much risk inherent in drug development that can't be predicted.

[Singuy]

Yes I can never stomach the risk of pharma stock and I am a pharmacist. My friends are into microcap bio stocks which you can either hit a 4x gain or die by the sword.

For me tech stocks all the way. People always point to the tech bubble as a cautionary tale. I don't buy it, tech is transforming the world daily and they are the only companies hitting record profits during this crisis while everything else are looking into bankruptcy protection.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

most people in the field won't buy pharma stocks. We just hang onto whatever people get. But god it's so easy to lose your shirt. I don't know why DH and I happened to hang onto a bunch from years ago. STUPID move. I think we thought it was a small part of our portfolio $30k and free money. Dumb. I finally cashed out and it's in cash.