With initial patients coming back for their second dose of Gilead’s twice-yearly PrEP injection, the pharma thinks the shot will hit $1 billion in sales this year, serving as “a cornerstone in Gilead’s revenue growth story.”
Gilead has set a high revenue bar for its twice-yearly PrEP injection Yeztugo, predicting that the drug will hit $1 billion in sales this year as access to and confidence in the prophylactic improve.
“Yeztugo continues to show an unprecedented launch trajectory for a new long-acting PrEP product,” Chief Commercial Officer Johanna Mercier told investors during the company’s Q1 earnings call on Thursday afternoon. The PrEP product made $166 million in the quarter, up 72% from its $96 million revenue in the previous quarter.
Yeztugo was approved in June 2025 and launched shortly after. While this timing precludes a year-on-year comparison of its sales, Gilead is now seeing patients return for their second yearly shots, and the feedback has been good so far.
“HCPs [healthcare professionals] are starting the second injection and thinking it’s a lot easier, access is easier,” she told investors on the call, noting that “approximately 95% of individuals” are covered in the U.S., allowing them to access Yeztugo with $0 co-pay.
Aside from accessibility, Mercier noted that “the confidence in the injection and the experience for the people getting the injection is also better.”
“We’re in a really good situation,” she continued. Yeztugo is now the leading long-acting injectable in the switch market—capturing those who transfer from one type of PrEP to Yeztugo—but Gilead is also seeing “higher-than-expected” uptake among patients naive to HIV prophylaxis, Mercier said on the call.
These trends, along with what Mercier called Yeztugo’s “incredibly strong performance,” drove the pharma’s confidence in raising its 2026 sales target for the product to $1 billion. Gilead had previously forecasted roughly $800 million for Yeztugo’s revenue this year, while investors were expecting around $900 million, according to BMO Capital Markets.
“Yeztugo growth/guidance raise validate our expectation that the product will be a cornerstone in Gilead’s revenue growth story,” the analysts told investors in a note on Thursday evening.
Aside from Yeztugo, analysts on Gilead’s call also expressed interest in the upcoming potential approval for anito-cel, the pharma’s CAR T therapy for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. The drug is currently under FDA review, with a target action date of Dec. 23.
On Thursday, Gilead said that the pharma is focused on laying the groundwork for a potential launch early next year, but that the team is also looking ahead to what could come after.
“We’re really excited about the potential for anito-cel going into earlier lines, whether it’s newly diagnosed multiple myeloma or even in smoldering where patients aren’t technically diagnosed with the disease,” Cindy Perettie, executive vice president of Kite, said on the call, adding that the company is currently working on program designs for these settings. “We think it’s going to be a really important option for patients in earlier lines.”
In the first quarter, Gilead clocked total revenues of $7 billion, a 4% year-on-year growth. HIV remained the pharma’s bread-and-butter, with sales hitting $5.03 billion worldwide. Biktarvy, the HIV-1 antiretroviral pill, brought in $3.36 billion and reigned as Gilead’s top-selling product.
