Gilead’s Irish business sees profit slump on falling sales of Covid drug

The Irish unit of US drug giant Gilead Sciences saw profit fall last year as demand for its Covid therapy fell sharply. However, the Irish business took in $460 million (€437m) in dividends from other companies in the group. Gilead Sciences Ireland has wholly-owned subsidiaries in 19 countries across Europe as well as In Australia, New Zealand, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Russia, Israel and central and South America.
It also paid dividends of $2.2 billion, up from $1.6 billion in 2022, to its immediate parent Gilead Biopharmaceutics US LLC.
Gilead has operations in Cork and Dublin which between them employ 635 people, according to results filed recently at the Companies Office. The company has a manufacturing, packaging and distribution centre in Cork that is responsible for close to a third of the group’s global supply of oral drugs for conditions like HIV and hepatitis C to around 100 markets worldwide.
It was also involved in producing the Covid antiviral drug remdesivir during the pandemic.
The company also has a base in Dublin that is the group’s centre of excellence for paediatric care, essentially examining how Gilead medicines can be used to treat children living with serious disease. The Irish business also holds, and is responsible for, commercialising certain intellectual property (IP) rights.
Revenues dropped 10 per cent last year to $6.55 billion but that was enough to knock almost 60 per cent of profit after tax, which fell to $241.2 million from $593.5 million in 2022.
The company blamed a fall in sales “offset by a linked decrease in royalty expense”. Directors said the business also suffered an impairment loss of $427 million on investments in subsidiary undertakings, Gilead Therapeutics A1 Unlimited Company and MiroBio Ltd, “offset by income from shares in group undertakings of $460 million”.
While Gilead’s Irish accounts do not break down the sale of individual products, consolidated accounts for the group show that sales of Veklury, the brand name for Remdesivir, dropped by 44 per cent last year to $2.18 billion worldwide. European sales of $408 million were 42 per cent down on the previous year, while international sales to other markets outside the US fell by half to $805 million.
Sales of hepatitis C medications were also slightly lower but this was offset by a 6 per cent growth in sales of the HIV therapies that now account for two-thirds of Gilead’s turnover. The company’s fast-growing oncology business also reported 37 per cent sales growth last year.