Gilead’s HIV Prevention Business Just Topped $1 Billion A Quarter. What Comes Next?

Gilead Sciences (GILD) built its foundation on HIV treatment. Biktarvy alone accounted for $14.3 billion of the company’s $29.4 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue. Yet another segment of the HIV business is growing at a much faster pace, and it targets people who do not currently carry the virus. Gilead expects a regulatory decision regarding a new option in this category in early 2027. So what is that business, and how much is it selling today?

Gilead’s Prevention Sales Passed $1 Billion In A Quarter

That business is HIV prevention, an area known as PrEP. These are medicines taken by people without the virus so they do not catch it. During fiscal Q2 2026, Gilead’s PrEP sales crossed $1 billion in a single quarter for the first time, out of the company’s $7.6 billion in total product sales. Executives noted on the latest earnings call that these prevention sales doubled from a year earlier.

Management credited this strength in prevention to two specific products, Descovy and Yeztugo. Descovy generated about $801 million from prevention during the quarter, representing a 60% increase from a year earlier. Prevention accounts for around 80% of all Descovy sales.

The broader U.S. PrEP market grew about 14% from a year earlier on a growing base of users, management said. Early users of Yeztugo, Gilead’s twice-yearly prevention injection, are also returning for subsequent doses. Executives reported that more than 70% of users so far have returned for a second injection at six months, extending their protection against HIV to a full year.

How Big Is Prevention Next To Gilead’s HIV Treatment?

Prevention remains significantly smaller than treatment. Descovy, mostly a prevention product, generated $2.76 billion in fiscal 2025. That total represents a fraction of the revenue Biktarvy produced. However, Descovy sales grew 30.5% that year, compared with a 6.8% increase for Biktarvy. For a business of Gilead’s size, prevention provides additional growth on top of treatment rather than replacing it.

Management has raised its outlook for the entire HIV category. During the latest call, executives forecast fiscal 2026 HIV sales growth of 9% to 10%, up from the 8% projected previously. Gilead is also expanding its global footprint. On September 15, 2026, the company announced an agreement with the Pan American Health Organization to speed access to twice-yearly lenacapavir, the drug in Yeztugo, for prevention across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Investors have already bid the shares up. Gilead stock closed on October 15, 2026, at its highest level of the past year. The shares returned 36.1% over that year, compared with 17.9% for the S&P 500. Trading at 6.4 times sales, against 3.1 for the S&P 500, the current stock price appears to assume that some of this growth continues.

What Questions Remain About Gilead’s Prevention Sales?

One question is whether third-party prescription figures align with Gilead’s reported sales. During the August 4, 2026 call, Gilead was asked about a widening gap between recent Yeztugo prescription trends tracked by outlets like IQVIA and the sales it reports. Executives said they would comment on their own data, not on how IQVIA captures it.

Looking ahead, management expects a regulatory decision by February 2, 2027 on what it calls the first long-acting oral prevention option. Before that decision, Gilead’s PrEP sales remain the metric to watch when the company releases its fiscal Q3 2026 report, expected later this month.

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