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Gilead Sciences makes and sells medicines that treat HIV, viral hepatitis, and cancer.
Most of Gilead's money comes from one big thing: HIV. The company sells pills that keep the virus suppressed, and increasingly it sells long-acting shots that you take every few months instead of every day. That HIV business brings in roughly two-thirds of total revenue — the company made about $28 billion last year — and it's steady money because people stay on these medicines for life. Think of it as a subscription business, except the subscription keeps you alive.
The rest comes from a few other pockets. Gilead sells cures for hepatitis C — a pill that wipes out the virus in most patients, usually in a couple of months. It also has a growing cancer business, built largely by buying other companies, including a deal for Immunomedics that brought in a treatment for a tough form of breast cancer, and a partnership with Arcus Biosciences to develop new cancer drugs. Gilead also makes Veklury, an antiviral used for COVID-19, though sales of that have fallen hard as the pandemic faded.
Gilead started in 1987 and made its name with the first big breakthroughs in HIV treatment. Today it's a cash machine: the medicines cost little to make and sell at high prices, so the company throws off billions in free cash each year. It spends that on research, on buying smaller drug companies, and on paying shareholders — it pays a dividend and buys back its own stock, which shrinks the number of shares and makes each remaining share worth more. The main risks are simple: patents on older HIV pills eventually expire, and governments and insurers keep pushing back on drug prices.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Oct 2026