“Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD), which bought Pharmasset Inc. (VRUS) for $10.8 billion last year to gain an experimental hepatitis C drug, dropped as much as 20 percent in early trading after some patients on that medicine relapsed after stopping therapy.
Gilead fell $11.10 to $43.71 as of 7:37 a.m. in trading before markets opened in New York. Shares of the Foster City, California-based company had gained 39 percent in the last 12 months before today.
Among eight patients with hepatitis C genotype 1 in a clinical trial, six had a viral relapse within four weeks after stopping a 12-week treatment with the medicine, GS-7977, plus ribavirin, Gilead said today in a statement. The two other patients are two weeks out from stopping treatment, and haven’t relapsed, the company said.
“Gilead announced what is unquestionably bad news,” Mark Schoenebaum, an analyst with ISI Group in New York, wrote in a note to clients today. The results could mean this kind of therapy “isn’t going to be enough in genotype 1 patients.”
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