Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD, +0.45% gained 0.6% in premarket trading on Friday after the company said Veklury, its COVID-19 drug, demonstrated in-vitro activity against omicron and 9 other variants. The research, which was announced in a news release on Friday morning, was published Thursday as a preprint. Gilead said the study has also been submitted for peer review. “These results provide evidence of the consistent and durable antiviral activity of remdesivir across known variants that have emerged throughout the pandemic, including omicron,” Gilead executive Tomas Cihlar said in the release. Veklury generated $5.5 billion in sales in 2022; however, the drug maker said it expects only $2 billion in sales in 2022 if omicron is the only major surge. The treatment has been primarily used in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, but it recently received Food and Drug Administration approval to be used in people who have not yet been hospitalized with COVID-19 but are at high risk of severe disease. Gilead’s stock is down 7.6% over the past year, while the broader S&P 500 SPX, -1.90% has gained 15.2%.
