Gilead Sciences, Inc. () is an American biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Foster City, California, that focuses on researching and developing antiviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, influenza, and COVID-19. It also develops medicines in therapeutic areas such as oncology and inflammation and cell therapy. In 1987, Michael L. Riordan founded the company under the name Oligogen. The original name was a reference to oligonucleotides, small strands of DNA used to target genetic sequences. Gilead held its initial public offering in 1992, and successfully developed drugs including Tamiflu and Vistide that decade. In the 2000s, Gilead began evolving from a biotechnology company into a large pharmaceutical company, through acquisitions and investments, acquiring several subsidiaries. Gilead is a member of the Nasdaq-100 and the S&P 100. The company has faced criticism over its business practices, including extremely high pricing of drugs such as Sovaldi and Truvada in the United States relative to production cost and cost in the developing world.
History
Foundation
In June 1987, Gilead Sciences was originally founded under the name Oligogen by Michael L. Riordan, a medical doctor. Riordan graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the Harvard Business School. The idea for Gilead began as a research project at Menlo Ventures, where Michael was an associate. Three scientific advisers worked with Riordan to create the company: Peter Dervan of Caltech, Doug Melton of Harvard, and Harold M. Weintraub of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, along with H. Dubose Montgomery, one of Menlo Ventures founders. Riordan served as CEO from the company's founding until 1996. Menlo Ventures subsequently made the first investment in Gilead of $2 million. Riordan also recruited scientific advisers, including Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate who later became Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Jack Szostak, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2009. The company's primary therapeutic focus was in antiviral medicines, a field that piqued Riordan's interest after he contracted dengue fever. Riordan recruited Donald Rumsfeld to join the board of directors in 1988, followed by Benno C. Schmidt, Sr., Gordon Moore, and George P. Shultz. Riordan tried to recruit Warren Buffett as an investor and board member but was unsuccessful. The company focused its early research on making small strands of DNA (oligomers, or more particularly, oligonucleotides) to target specific genetic code sequences – that is, antisense therapy, a form of gene therapy. According to Riordan, he had always wanted to use the name Gilead Sciences all along. Still, he used Oligogen as a temporary name because he needed to deal with a trademark clearance issue with a California nonprofit organization that was already using the word Gilead in its name. He had first heard of the Balm of Gilead when he read Lanford Wilson's play Balm in Gilead while in medical school, then learned that naturally occurring acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) had been found in modern times in a willow tree species from that part of that world, and was therefore inspired to name his company Gilead. After founding Oligogen, he contacted the nonprofit about the naming issue and secured the right to use the Gilead Sciences name in exchange for a $1,000 donation. By 1988, the company had moved its headquarters to Foster City's Vintage Park neighborhood, where it has been based ever since. The company began developing small-molecule antivirals in the early 1990s, entering licensing agreements in 1991 and 1992 with the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry in Prague and the Rega Institute for Medical Research in Leuven for nucleotide analogues discovered through the collaboration of Czech chemist Antonín Holý and Belgian virologist Erik De Clercq. In 1991 and 1992, Gilead licensed nucleotide analogues from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry in Prague and the Rega Institute for Medical Research in Leuven, beginning its development of small-molecule antivirals. They had been discovered through a collaboration between Antonín Holý and Erik De Clercq. The compounds included cidofovir, tenofovir and adefovir, which Gilead subsequently developed as Vistide, Viread and Hepsera. Riordan later recalled that Gilead's first decade as a startup was an extremely stressful experience for him, as a young venture capitalist serving for the first time as the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of his own biotech company. The new company had no products and very little income, and narrowly escaped going out of business on several occasions: "It was touch and go for a long time". Finding a way for Gilead to make money was Riordan's top priority "every second of the day for eight years".
1990–1999: IPO Gilead's antisense intellectual property portfolio was sold to Ionis Pharmaceuticals. Gilead debuted on the NASDAQ in January 1992. Its initial public offering raised $86.25 million in proceeds. In June 1996, Gilead launched Vistide (cidofovir injection) for the treatment of cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis in patients with AIDS. In January 1997, Donald Rumsfeld was appointed chairman, but left the board in January 2001 when he was appointed United States Secretary of Defense during George W. Bush's first term as president. In March 1999, Gilead acquired NeXstar Pharmaceuticals of Boulder, Colorado. At the time, NeXstar's annual sales of $130 million was three times Gilead's sales; it sold AmBisome, an injectable fungal treatment, and DaunoXome, an oncology drug taken by HIV patients. That same year, Roche announced FDA approval of Tamiflu (oseltamivir) for the treatment of influenza. Tamiflu was originally discovered by Gilead and licensed to Roche for late-phase development and marketing. One reason for entering into the Tamiflu licensing agreement was that with only 350 employees, Gilead still did not yet have the capability to sell its drugs directly to overseas buyers. To avoid having to license future drugs in order to access international markets, Gilead simply acquired the 480-employee NeXstar, which had already built its own sales force in Europe to market AmBisome there.
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