What do you get when you combine swine-flu-boosted royalties with drugs that patients can't stop taking, even in a recession? One profitable company.
Gilead Sciences
Those royalties are a great driver for earnings, because the margins are incredible -- how much does it cost to cash a check? Excluding acquisition and restructuring-related costs, earnings per share were up 52%. Like I said, one profitable company.
Looking ahead, Gilead expects product sales to increase 17% to 19% this year. Add that to research and development and selling, general, and administrative expenses that aren't expected to grow as fast, and you've got a company that's still growing like gangbusters.
Its dominant HIV franchise puts Gilead in the driver's seat, and companies will have to partner up, the way Johnson & Johnson