Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) is the focus of two separate headline stories today. First, Gilead will acquire the development and commercialization rights, in specified Asian geographies, for breast cancer treatment Trodelvy from Everest Medicines. Second, Gilead Sciences will donate up to $5 million to support for a public campaign related to monkeypox awareness and vaccine hesitancy. It seems that today’s traders are still mulling these developments. Consequently, GILD stock stayed near breakeven early in today’s session.
With a market capitalization of nearly $83 billion, Gilead Sciences is among the largest U.S. biopharmaceutical companies. So, Gilead has the capital resources to financially support a cause if the company chooses to do so.
Thus, Gilead Sciences disclosed today that it intends to provide up to $5 million in global grant funding to support “a public education and vaccine hesitancy communications campaign, a public policy response and a global outbreak emergency fund.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency on Aug. 4.
Public education efforts in this awareness campaign will include the creation of videos, graphics and other informational resources. Gilead Sciences is embarking on this campaign with several public service organizations.
GILD Stock Traders Consider an Asia-Focused Agreement
As of 11:00 a.m Eastern, GILD stock was down less than 1%. It’s possible that Gilead’s support of the aforementioned awareness campaign didn’t move the needle much on Wall Street.
However, another development might turn out to be more impactful from a business perspective. Specifically, Gilead Sciences disclosed an agreement with Everest Medicines to receive all development and commercialization rights for Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan) in throughout a number of Asian regions.
Trodelvy is approved in mainland China and Singapore for the “treatment of adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) who have received two or more prior systemic therapies, at least one of them for metastatic disease,” according to the press release.
All told, Trodelvy is approved in more than 35 countries. Gilead is working to get Trodelvy approved in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan.
The agreement specifies that Gilead will pay $280 million upfront to Everest. Furthermore, Everest is eligible to receive up to $175 million in potential additional payments. However, these payments are conditional upon achieving “certain regulatory and commercial milestones.”
So far, traders on Wall Street seem hesitant to buy or sell GILD stock in large quantities today. It will be interesting to see whether they eventually decide to land on the bullish or the bearish side of the fence.
On the date of publication, David Moadel did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
