Social and private value created through commercialization of Gilead Sciences’ innovative medicines for Hepatitis C and HIV: a cross-sectional analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Objectives This work assesses the value created for society and for private sector by Gilead Sciences, Inc. (Gilead) through commercialization of medicines for hepatitis C and HIV from 2012-2020. While Gilead has developed several groundbreaking medicines, the company has also been criticized for its drug pricing, patenting, and profits. This analysis posits the total value created by a medicine derives from the health benefit provided to those using these medicines. Design Cross-sectional analysis. Primary and Secondary outcome measures Health benefit from treatment for nine hepatitis C or HIV medicines (Quality-Adjusted Life Years [QALYs], $), number of individuals benefited, price paid, and Gilead Sciences’ financial report (10K). Results Gilead’s product sales generated 15.1 million in health benefit measured using QALYs for 23.7 million people. Expressed in monetary terms, these products created a total health value of $744.8 billion (US: $168.0; global: $576.8). This produced a residual health value, net price paid, of $544.6 billion (US: $35.9; global: $508.7) including $418.6 billion from hepatitis C medicines (US: $62.4; global: $356.2) and $125.9 billion from HIV medicines (US: -$26.6; global: $152.5). Total social value (US + global) created was $613.6 billion including residual health value ($544.6 billion), R&D ($34.2 billion), job creation ($9.7 billion), and social payments ($25.1 billion). Total private value was $193.5 billion including shareholder value ($85.7 billion) and network value (payments to commercial firms, $107.8 billion). Conclusions Social and private value differed between US and global sales and among diseases. This analysis highlights the scale of the value that can be created by modern medicines and the commercialization of pharmaceutical products applied to unmet medical needs. Assessing value creation at product level may guide corporate strategies and inform policies to promote both profit and public purpose. Strengths and limitations of this study “Total stakeholder value” approach considers the sum of value provided to different stakeholders Total health value measured from unit sales and health benefit to treated individuals Analysis based on market data and financial reports of manufacturers applicable to business strategy and policy Method applicable to assessing value created by individual drugs, classes of drugs, or companies Health benefit measured in QALYs are subject to limitations of this metric MeSh Headings “Hepatitis C” [MeSh Terms], “HIV Infections” [MeSh Terms], “Quality-Adjusted Life Years” [MeSh Terms], “Private Sector” [MeSh Terms], “Public Sector” [MeSh Terms]
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.014 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".