Biotech Pic: Gilead Sciences

February 26, 2008

Continuing our special focus on Biotech this week, we spoke to analyst Dr. Yaron Werber of Citi Investment Research, who talked a little bit about one of his pic in the Biotech space: Gilead Sciences (GILD).

 Dr. Werber: Gilead is one of the well-known large cap biotech companies that is specifically playing in the HIV, hepatitis, and now in the pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) spaces. The reason to like Gilead, even though this company is fairly well understood, is that the sellside consensus estimates do not fully reflect the magnitude of growth that is still available globally to the HIV franchise. The growth is driven by organic market growth, geographical expansion and pricing.
We also believe that the company is highly focused so they have terrific leverage on expenses. We continue to believe that the bottom line numbers on the Street are too conservative and investors are not really looking at the ongoing operating margin expansion.

For the full interview with Dr. Werber, including a complete overview of his sector of coverage in the Biotech space and more stock picks, click here.