Gilead Sciences is conducting phase III trials to explore whether this treatment – which did not turn out to be effective against Ebola – might be effective in treating COVID-19. We all hope it will be and if it does pass phase III trials, national income tax authorities will later have to address the transfer pricing implications of any profits Gilead Sciences generates. This blog post is the first of two with this one setting up some basic transfer pricing principles by noting Gilead’s previous wonder treatments – its recent successes in treating Hepatitis C and its HIV treatments introduced a generation ago. My next blog post will discuss Remdesivir. Gilead was first to market with a treatment they called Sovaldi, which was their Hep C treatment based on sofosbuvir developed through phase II clinical trials by Pharmasset in 2011 for $11 billion. While Gilead was hopeful that its phase III efforts would lead to a successful and highly profitable treatment, the market place in 2011 worried that they had overpaid for an unproven treatment, which could also have competition. Matthew Herper noted in 2014 how this product launch did incredibly well after a rather fast process of obtaining regulatory approval in the U.S.:
Gilead’s launch of Sovaldi is looking like the fastest drug launch ever. Hepatitis C afflicts an estimated 3 million Americans. The chart below, from ISI Group analyst Mark Schoenebaum, tracks the number of Sovaldi prescriptions written by doctors according to data tracker IMS Health (this is labeled as TRx) against the launch of Vertex’s Incivek, another hepatitis C drug that was until now the fastest drug launch ever, and against the combination of Incivek and Merck’s competing drug, Victrelis. Schoenebaum also draws in his own forecast of what Sovaldi would have to do to reach $5 billion in sales in its first year on the market. That’s right — I said $5 billion. And Sovaldi (the red line) is way, way ahead of that forecast. In fact, the prescription numbers seem to be going straight up. There are still reasons some investors might question Gilead’s valuation. It may be that there are fewer hepatitis C patients than drug companies and public health officials think. It may be that Gilead gets blowback for the high cost of the drug — $84,000 per course. It may be that other entrants, from AbbVie or Merck, for instance, will prove good enough or inexpensive enough to take market share or even force a price war. It’s possible that insurance companies will push back.But having a product that is selling fast is a good problem to have.
