Gilead Shares Up Amid HIV Drug Results

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc. (Nasdaq: continued to rise on Monday after the release late last week of summaries indicating positive clinical trial results for the company's experimental HIV drug, analysts said.

Complete results from the studies of tenofovir, which has been given the brand name Viread, are slated to be released at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Chicago on September 22-25.

``We expect Gilead to be a major focus for the meeting,'' Michael King, an analyst at Robertson Stephens said.

Gilead's shares were up $1.94, or more than 3 percent, at $62.45. The shares have gained about 20 percent in the last week, including a more than 6 percent increase last Wednesday when the company announced the sale of its 49-percent stake in the Proligo manufacturing joint venture to Degussa Corp. for $14 million in cash.

Analysts said a total of 14 abstracts related to Viread, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor which Gilead is developing as a treatment for HIV infection, are slated for presentation at the ICAAC meeting. The company is also sponsoring a symposium at the conference on reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

``We expect investigators to highlight the currently available therapies and discuss where they view tenofovir fitting into this landscape,'' King said in a report. ``We will also be looking to see how this data is accepted by the HIV community.''

Data released on Viread, which works by blocking an enzyme crucial to the replication of HIV, will include final data from a six-month pivotal trial in patients who failed to respond to other drugs. Gilead submitted a marketing application for tenofovir to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May.

Gilead is also presenting data from a two-year safety trial of the same drug, which is seen as a critical element for its approval. Analysts said the company may also present late-breaking results from the same study showing the drug's effectiveness.

Another study abstract released last week concerns resistance patterns related to Viread. ``To date, tenofovir, while not overwhelmingly potent, has had a novel drug-resistance pattern,'' the Robertson Stephens report said.

An FDA advisory committee is slated to review Gilead's application for Viread on October 3.

``We believe Gilead will emerge from ICAAC as a winner, with positive momentum going into its FDA panel meeting for Viread in early October. We reiterate our 'market perform' rating and our $67 12-month price target,'' King said.