Deena Beesley

(Reuters] -Gilead Sciences Inc reported Thursday that its third-quarter earnings were higher than anticipated due to high demand for COVID-19 antiviral treatments. However, it said its 2021 sales of other drugs would fall below earlier estimates.

Gilead (NASDAQ 🙂 stated that it expects to make sales of approximately $21.5 billion for Veklury without Veklury. Also known as remdesivir Gilead (NASDAQ 🙂 This is a decrease from the previous estimates of $21.7 billion-21.9 billion. It is a result of the more prolonged than anticipated impact of the pandemic.

Gilead claims that the pandemic caused sales to suffer, in particular its HIV-based drugs.

Shares of the company, closing at $67.34, fell 2% to $66 during extended trading.

Refinitiv compiled the following Wall Street estimates: $2.65 per Share for biotechnology companies. This beats Wall Street’s estimate of $1.75 per shares.

Gilead’s quarter revenue rose by 13% to $7.4 Billion, compared with $6.26 billion as an average analyst estimate.

Veklury sales soared to $1.9billion for the quarter, against analyst estimates of $654m.

Veklury is an intravenous drug that’s administered to COVID-19-infected patients. It has been driven by falling pandemic hospitalization rates in the recent weeks.

The third quarter sales of HIV medications fell 8% to $4.2billion due to the loss of patent protection for some drugs and continued restrictions on doctor visits.

Analyst estimates put the sales of Trodelvy, a new breast cancer drug, at $101million for the quarter.

Gilead’s full-year adjusted earnings outlook has been increased to $7.90 to 8.10 per share. This is an increase from the $6.90 to $7.25 projection.

Veklury was included in the firm’s new product sales estimates for 2012. This is a significant increase from the previous $24.4 billion to $25.4 billion estimate.