Gilead Sciences Inc. Beats Q4 Views; Outlook Disappoints

Gilead Sciences Inc.

shares were little changed after the company beat fourth-quarter estimates but offered a forecast below expectations. In after-hours trading, Gilead changed hands recently at $106.55, down $0.63 cents. Gilead forecast 2015 sales between $26 billion and $27 billion, compared with Wall Street's expectation of $28.7 billion. The maker of Solvadi and Harvoni hepatitis C drugs also initiated a quarterly dividend at $0.43 cents a share starting in the second quarter, along with a $15 billion five-year buyback plan. The new buyback is in addition to its existing $5 billion program of which $3 billion remained as of Dec. 31. Fourth-quarter net income was $3.5 billion, or $2.18 a share, up from $791 billion, or $0.47 cents a share in the year-earlier period. Adjusted earnings were $2.43 a share, while revenue grew to $7.3 billion, from $3.1 billion last year. Wall Street expected adjusted earnings of $2.22, on revenue of $6.72 billion. Antiviral product sales grew nearly 160 percent in the recent quarter to $6.7 billion. The sales growth was driven by sales of Sovaldi which launched in December 2013 in the U.S. and Harvoni which launched in the U.S. in October 2014. Other product sales, which include the hypertension drug Letairis, the angina medication Ranexa and AmBisome for meningitis increased 23 percent to $496 million for the fourth quarter.