Gilead expects to increase share of HIV market

By Deena Beasley

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) expects its share of the market for HIV drugs to keep rising after favorable clinical data for its two-drug combination pill and the launch this year of a triple-drug pill, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.

"We are confident that we will continue to gain market share," CEO John Martin said at the Reuters Biotechnology Summit in Los Angeles.

A study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that Gilead's Emtriva and Viread, which are combined in its Truvada pill, worked better as a treatment for the virus that causes AIDS and led to fewer side effects than GlaxoSmithKline Plc's (GSK.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Combivir.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is slated to decide by March 9 whether to allow the trial results to be included on Truvada's label.

"We are prepared for first time to use that data for our sales efforts," Martin said.

He compared the contest with Glaxo to what happened several years ago when Gilead launched Viread as a competitor to the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor d4T.

"We did a head-to-head study of Viread vs. d4T and saw very substantial difference in safety components ... in the study vs. Combivir we saw both safety and efficacy advantages," Martin said.

Over just the last 18 months, d4T's share of the market has been driven down to 4.5 percent from 7.5 percent. "We expect to see a similar pattern with AZT," the CEO said.  Continued...