Gilead names Daniel O’Day as Chairman and CEO

Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) has named Daniel O’Day as its new Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, effective March 1, 2019. O’Day comes to Gilead from Roche Holding AG. In July, Chairman John C. Martin and CEO John F. Milligan both announced their departures.

Milligan will leave by the end of this year while Martin will step down on March 1, 2019. Gregg Alton will serve as interim CEO from January 1, 2019 to March 1, 2019.

During his time at Roche, O’Day helped drive growth at the company through solid drug sales as well as the launch of several new products. It is expected that he can help fuel the slowing sales in Gilead’s lead products.

Gilead has generated billions of dollars in sales from its Hepatitis C drugs, like Harvoni, as well as its HIV products. However, heavy competition and high prices are hurting the sales of its Hepatitis C drugs. During the third quarter, product sales in the Chronic Hepatitis C division fell to $902 million from $2.2 billion last year, mainly due to declines in sales of Harvoni and Epclusa across all major markets.

Upbeat Q2 results no help to Gilead Sciences as CEO resignation sends shares down

During the third quarter, sales for Harvoni fell to $311 million from $973 million last year while Epclusa sales dropped to $477 million from $882 million. The new chief will have the task of boosting the sales of Yescarta as well, which totaled only $75 million for the third quarter and $183 million for the first nine months of the year. However, this is not likely to be easy due to pressures in production and pricing.

Gilead’s shares have fallen over 4% year-to-date and looking at the past three months, the stock has dropped over 5%. The stock was up 1.8% in premarket hours on Monday.

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