Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Gilead Sciences, Inc. 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I would now like to turn -- I would now like to introduce you to Daniel O'day.

Good morning. I'm Dan O'Day, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Gilead Sciences. I'm pleased to welcome you to Gilead's 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to support the health and safety of our stockholders, employees, Board of Directors and surrounding communities, we are holding this meeting in a virtual-only format instead of as in-person meeting. We have stockholders and participants attending via the virtual meeting portal. Before I call the meeting to order, I'd like to introduce you to some of the members of the Gilead team. Joining me today are the members of the Board of Directors. Kevin Lofton, our Lead Independent Director; Jacqueline Barton; Jeffrey Bluestone; Sandra Horning; Kelly Kramer; Harish Manwani; Javier Rodriguez; Anthony Welters; Richard Whitley and Per Wold-Olsen. Before we move forward with additional introductions, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank 2 long-standing directors who are retiring from the Board. Richard Whitley has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2008. Rich has provided tremendous value to Gilead during his 13-year tenure. Drawing on his extensive medical and scientific expertise, Rich has played a key role in helping the company bring forward new therapies. His understanding of infectious diseases has been critical to Gilead's leading work in this field. Rich's service to Gilead, his leadership and contribution to the company growth are greatly appreciated. Per Wold-Olsen has served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2010. Per has made outstanding contributions to the company's success over the past 11 years. His broad experience, his strong leadership skills and his knowledge across a range of topics have been critical to Gilead's success with delivering new medicines. Per has provided immense value in shaping Gilead's global approach to access, helping to ensure that our medicines reach the patients who might benefit. On behalf of all of us at Gilead, I'd like to express our gratitude to Rich and Per for their years of valuable service and many contributions. We wish them all the best for the future. Continuing on with introductions, we also have several members of our leadership team here this morning. Andy Dickinson, our Chief Financial Officer; Johanna Mercier, our Chief Commercial Officer; Merdad Parsey, our Chief Medical Officer; Brett Pletcher, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and General Counsel; and Jacquie Ross, Head of Investor Relations. Also joining us today is Linda Hill from Ernst & Young, our independent auditors. It is now shortly after 10:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on May 12, 2021, and this meeting is officially called to order. Brett Pletcher will serve as Secretary for this meeting. We will first conduct the formal business of the meeting as described in our proxy statement. After the formal meeting has adjourned, we will provide an overview of Gilead's business activities and address your questions. The meeting will run in accordance with the agenda and the procedures set forth in the rules of conduct and procedures posted on the virtual meeting portal. The Board of Directors has appointed Kristina Veaco of Veaco Group to act as inspector of elections at this meeting. Ms. Veaco has taken and subscribed the customary oath of office to execute her duties with strict impartiality. We will file this oath with the records of the meeting. Her function is to determine the qualifications of voters, accept their votes, and when balloting on all matters is completed, to tally the ballots cast as to each matter. Will the secretary please report on the stockholders' list and the mailing of the meeting notice?

I have a complete list of the stockholders of record of the company's common stock on March 19, 2021, the record date for this meeting. I also have an affidavit from Broadridge certifying that on March 30, 2021, a notice of annual meeting of stockholders of the company was disseminated to all stockholders of record on the record date.

Will the secretary please report on the existence of a quorum.

I have been informed by the inspector of election that proxies have been received for 1,061,980,455 shares of the 1,259,056,043 shares of common stock outstanding on the record date, which represents approximately 84.3% of the total number of outstanding shares. This constitutes a quorum for the transaction of business.

I hereby declare this meeting to be duly convened and the polls open for voting and the transaction of all business.

Any stockholder who has not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the virtual meeting portal and following the instructions there. Stockholders who have voted prior to the meeting by proxy, telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action.

In order to expedite the flow of business of this meeting, we intend to adhere to the following order of business. Each of the matters to be acted on by the stockholders today will be presented in the order set forth in the agenda. After presentation of all matters, I will open the floor for questions or comments on those items of business. Questions or comments may only be submitted in the designated field on the virtual meeting portal by stockholders who have logged in with their 16-digit control number. In order to ensure that the business of the meeting proceeds in an orderly fashion and that stockholders who wish to participate have a fair opportunity to do so, please limit your questions and comments to the items of business listed on the agenda.

The first item of business is the election of 9 director nominees named in the proxy statement to serve for the next year and until their successors are elected and qualified. The Director nominees are Jacqueline Barton, Jeffrey Bluestone, Sandra Horning, Kelly Kramer, Kevin Lofton, Harish Manwani, Daniel O'Day, Javier Rodriguez, and Anthony Walters, each a current director of the company. The Board of Directors has recommended a vote in favor of each of the nominees. The second item of business is the ratification of Ernst & Young LLP by the audit committee of the Board of Directors as the independent registered public accounting firm of Gilead for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. The Board of Directors has recommended a vote in favor of this proposal. The third item of business is the approval on an advisory basis of the compensation of our named executive officers as presented in the proxy statement. The Board of Directors has recommended a vote in favor of this proposal. The fourth item of the business is consideration of a stockholder proposal requesting that the Board adopt a policy that the chairperson of the Board of Directors be an independent director. The Board of Directors has recommended a vote against this proposal for the reasons set forth in the proxy statement. [ Matthew Elian ] will present the proposal.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board and fellow shareholders. My name is [ Matthew Elian. ] On behalf of United Church Funds and other co-filers, I'm presenting item #4 requesting with the Chairperson of Gilead Sciences Board be an independent Director. First, I want to thank Brett Pletcher for engaging with us on this issue. This resolution is of deep importance. The management of a complex global pharmaceutical company is a full time job. With all due respect to Mr. O'Day, it is unrealistic to expect one person to excel both as CEO and Chair of this Board. This has been made crystal clear during the COVID pandemic. This last year made us all explicitly aware of the public scrutiny Gilead endorsed over its drug pricing. Nearly a dozen state treasurers and 33 attorney generals sent letters accusing the company of "unconscionable pricing" of remdesivir. While setting reasonable drug prices may be a topic of endless debate, best practices and board governance can be settled today. The average tenure of a Fortune 500 CEO is only 4.6 years, and Mr. O'Day has already served nearly 2 years. When Mr. O'Day sits in the role of the Board Chairman, is he the best person to represent investors who are planning to hold the stock for the next 10 years? How about those who plan to hold this stock forever? We all want this company to succeed. To do so, we need a leader of the Board who is fully empowered to preserve and protect the company's social and public license to operate over the long term. An independent board chair eliminates the structural conflicts of interest caused by the -- when the CEO, in our case, Mr. O'Day, is essentially his own boss. Thank you very much.

Thank you, [ Mr. Elian. ] The Board's opposition statement for this stockholders proposal has been included in the proxy statement for all stockholders to consider.

We will now turn to questions or comments submitted by stockholders through the virtual meeting portal that are related to the items of business listed on the agenda. As a courtesy to the other stockholders present, please limit yourself to 1 question or comment of reasonable length.

And our first question, is the executive compensation really aligned with shareholder return other than the dividend payments?

Thank you for the question. This is Kevin Lofton, Lead Independent Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee. Actually, the answer is a little bit of both. It's not an either/or. The core objective of our executive officer compensation program is to align pay and performance and this helps us to ensure that Gilead's executives are focused on Gilead's performance in the same way that shareholders are. A substantial portion of the target total direct compensation for our named executive officers is at risk and tied directly to Gilead's performance, including the achievement of specific financial metrics. When we look at our long-term incentive awards, they are comprised of 50% performance shares, 25% RSUs and 25% stock options. Our performance share plan equally weights 2 metrics: relative total shareholder return, which was what you were asking, over a 3-year period as compared to the S&P Health Care sub index and absolute net product revenue also over a 3- year period. Under our short-term incentive plan, 50% of the opportunity is tied to the achievement of preestablished financial metrics. In 2020, those metrics were net product revenue and operating income. The remaining 50% is tied to the achievement of specific pipeline, product and people metrics, our 3Ps, again, pipeline, product and people that serve as building blocks for our future product development and position us to deliver longer term value to shareholders. Thank you, again, for the question.

Chairman, that concludes our questions and comments relating to the proposals.

Thank you. The polls will be closing momentarily. We will pause for a moment here. [Voting]

It is now 10:15 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, and I hereby declare the polls closed. Will the Secretary please provide a preliminary report on the voting.

I will now report on the voting of the stockholders at this meeting. Each share of common stock is entitled to 1 vote. The voting was conducted by proxy, written ballot and through our virtual meeting portal. The preliminary report of the inspector of elections is as follows. The director nominees named in the proxy statement have been elected with at least approximately 91.7% of the shares voting in favor of each nominee. The selection of Ernst & Young by the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors as the independent registered public accounting firm of Gilead for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021, is ratified with approximately 94.6% of the votes voting in favor. The advisory vote to approve the compensation of our named executive officers as presented in the proxy statement is approved with approximately 86.9% of the shares voting in favor. The stockholder proposal requesting the Board adopt a policy that the Chairman of the Board of Directors be an independent director is not approved with approximately 34.4% of the shares voting in favor. The final results of voting will be reported in a Form 8-K within 4 business days from today.

This concludes the formal portion of our meeting. After adjournment, I'll provide an overview of Gilead's business. Following the presentation, we will take questions and comments from stockholders through the virtual meeting portal. The meeting is now adjourned. Moving to the business presentation. I'm pleased now to transition to the overview of our business. I'll share a general updating, highlighting notable progress and then dive into key areas of our business, HIV and oncology, including cell therapy. This is a catalyst-heavy year for Gilead across our pipeline, and our teams have done a great job balancing commercial and R&D execution to position Gilead for success. As a reminder, we'll be making forward-looking statements during this presentation, all of which involve certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties that are beyond our control and could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. A description of these risks can be found in our latest SEC disclosure documents. All forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to Gilead and Gilead assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. At last year's stockholder meeting, we had just received the data confirming the potential of remdesivir, or Veklury, as it is now known, to help in the fight against COVID-19. One year later, and all of us at Gilead are grateful that remdesivir has played such an important role in the pandemic. It is now a standard of care for patients who are hospitalized with COVID-19. As the pandemic continues to take its toll across the world, Gilead continues to support access for all appropriate patients in need of remdesivir. Last month, we worked with the Indian government, health authorities and voluntary licensees to accelerate production capacity for India. We also donated 450,000 vials of Veklury to help patients as the supply of generic remdesivir increases. Through our voluntary license program, 127 countries now have access to generic remdesivir, and in total, an estimated 4 million patients around the world have been treated with the medicine. At the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in January, I highlighted our 3 strategic priorities to drive growth. First, deliver on opportunities in new therapeutic areas; second, ensure the strength and durability of our core virology business; and last, drive additional growth through execution and disciplined portfolio optimization, including our business development activities. Despite the pandemic, we made great progress in the last 12 months. Since our last annual meeting, business development activities have significantly evolved Gilead's portfolio and future outlook. We announced and closed the acquisition of Immunomedics, a transformative acquisition for Gilead and MYR Pharmaceuticals. We also secured many opt-in collaborations and partnerships across therapeutic areas. At the end of the first quarter 2021, 23 of our 47 clinical programs were from in-licensing or acquisitions. This approach allows us to expand and diversify our portfolio with the best innovation, while leveraging respective expertise to accelerate progress. We recently announced a collaboration with Merck to co-develop a long-acting regimen for HIV treatments by combining our investigational lenacapavir with their investigational islatravir. By working together, we anticipate bringing patients an option for long-acting oral treatments at least 2 years earlier than previously anticipated. We've also seen great developments across our pipeline, including key approvals. Most notably, in April, Trodelvy received full U.S. FDA approval for second-line plus metastatic triple-negative breast cancer and received accelerated approval in second-line plus metastatic urothelial cancer. Over the remainder of 2021, we have more than 20 milestones in our radar, which includes 6 key readouts across oncology and virology. We also anticipate 7 more regulatory submissions over the course of the year. We are hopeful that this will lead to us adding more marketed therapies to our portfolio with the potential to reach many patients in need. Moving to Slide 7. As I mentioned, we now have 47 clinical stage programs across therapeutic areas compared to about 30 just 2 years ago. With a substantially diversified pipeline across both early-stage programs and marketed therapies, we are excited by the significant opportunities in our hands today. On the next slide, as I mentioned earlier, the first part of our path to grow is to deliver in new therapeutic areas. I'm very pleased with the strong progress we've made in oncology with over 20 internal clinical-stage oncology programs and a significant build-out of industry leading expertise. The most notable example of progress is with Trodelvy, which has extensive potential to help people with multiple forms of cancer. In April, Trodelvy received 2 FDA approvals. First, a full FDA approval that expanded the third-line plus indication, which came with the earlier accelerated approval to second-line plus metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. This allows us to reach patients in earlier settings and more than doubles the addressable population in the U.S., approximately 10,000 patients. We look forward to engaging with physicians and patients to convey the benefits of Trodelvy, most notably its ability to extend median overall survival by almost a year. It also nearly tripled the median progression-free survival compared to chemotherapy. And second, the FDA granted accelerated approval in second-line plus metastatic urothelial cancer. With almost 1/3 of patients responding to treatment at a 7.2-month median duration of response, Trodelvy offers a much needed new treatment option for patients with metastatic urothelial cancer whose disease continues to progress after available first and second-line treatment. In the U.S. alone, we estimate there are roughly 8,000 addressable patients. The second main part of our growth story is our sustained leadership in virology. As we expand into new therapeutic areas, we are confident of sustaining and expanding our position in HIV and other viral diseases and conditions. Slide 8 highlights how our HIV portfolio covers treatment, prevention and cure. As mentioned earlier, we announced a new partnership to combine investigational lenacapavir with Merck's investigational islatravir for long-acting HIV treatment. While many people living with HIV may prefer a daily regimen like Biktarvy, we believe that broadening their options to include weekly oral therapies and infrequent injections every 3 months or longer addresses a significant patient need and sets up strong, sustainable HIV leadership into the late 2030s. Long-acting formulations such as lenacapavir's monotherapy are also likely to unlock further prep usage and reach many more people at risk of HIV. We are pleased with our progress in advancing lenacapavir in both treatment and prevention settings as part of our internal clinical development. This past quarter, we reported compelling long-acting efficacy data from the CAPELLA trial for lenacapavir in heavily treatment-experienced people with multidrug-resistant HIV. And while we advance lenacapavir, Biktarvy usage continues to grow with 1 and 2 people living with HIV starting their treatment on Biktarvy in the U.S. In addition, Biktarvy is capturing 1 and 2 switches, and approximately half of those are switching from a regimen that includes a non-Gilead agent. Ultimately, we are committed to helping to end the HIV epidemic, and we continue to work towards a potential cure. We have several early-stage programs evaluating combinations to understand the biology and identify a path for this important mission. We are leveraging our internal expertise as well as external partnerships, including Aelix and Gritstone. With several ongoing programs and commercial strength, we believe Gilead is well positioned through continued expansion and growth in HIV. The third strategic priority I want to highlight is the focus on execution and prioritization. This includes some of the recent work at Kite to ensure our resources are focused on the most promising opportunities to make a difference for patients. Our focus on therapies with the highest potential for patients is essential to expanding cell -- our cell therapy business. Earlier this year, Kite received its third indication approval with FDA granting accelerated approval for Yescarta in third-line plus follicular lymphoma. Also, FDA has approved the inclusion of ZUMA-1 Cohort 4's updated safety for Yescarta's label for third line DLBCL, which further improves the benefit risk profile of Yescarta and provides physicians with additional information for the management of certain adverse events. Later this quarter, we expect a data readout from the ZUMA-7 study in second-line DLBCL. Pending results, this could lead to a potential sBLA or MAA filing in the second half of this year. Upon approval, this would nearly double the eligible patients. Moving to Slide 11. We're pleased to report that in 2020, Gilead returned a total of $5 billion to shareholders, including $3.4 billion through dividends and $1.6 billion in share repurchases. In 2021, from a capital allocation perspective, we are focused on investing in the business and the R&D pipeline, while growing our dividend and paying down at least $4 billion in debt. Share buybacks will be used to offset dilution and opportunistically reduce share count. In closing, Slide 12 highlights the most important milestones for the year ahead. You can expect to see updates on these every quarter. The milestones include key data readouts for Trodelvy and hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer for Yescarta in second-line DLBCL. Hepcludex for hepatitis D. Arcus' Domvanalimab for non-small cell lung cancer and magrolimab for MDS. This is a pivotal year for Gilead with multiple catalysts and opportunities, and I look forward to sharing our progress with all of you. Gilead would not be the company it is today without the vision of John Martin, Gilead's Chief Executive Officer for 20 years, who passed away in March. Under his leadership, Gilead transformed the treatment of HIV and viral hepatitis and became a global organization firmly rooted in its commitment to science and the patients. That commitment will be a constant as we work to take John's legacy forward in Gilead's next chapter. And with that, I'll open it up to Q&A. Now we would like to take stockholder questions and comments submitted through the portal -- through the virtual meeting portal. As a courtesy to the other stockholders present, please limit yourself to 1 question or a comment of reasonable length. Questions and comments will be addressed in accordance with the rules of conduct and procedures posted on the virtual meeting portal. Please note that we may -- that we will attempt to answer as many questions as time allows.

Thank you. And our first set of questions is on remdesivir. Does Gilead expect to be able to meet global Veklury demand with the expected production? And if so, when? And what other steps are you considering to expand production and accelerate distribution of Veklury?

Thank you for that question. I'm going to ask Johanna Mercier, our Chief Commercial Officer, to answer that question, please.

Thanks, Dan. So we've been meeting real-time global demand for Veklury since last October, and we don't anticipate any disruptions of that supply because we've been manufacturing and building up our supply at risk, not exactly knowing where the pandemic is going. I think everybody is in the same boat on that front. Having said that, we've also been helping our voluntary licenses, generic manufacturers, where they've had a little bit more issues on the supply front, namely in India, where we have 5 voluntary licensed generic manufacturers and trying to help them to ramp up as quickly as possible because they had slowed down the supply thinking they wouldn't need it. And so we've also helped both the Egyptian voluntary license that we have there with the generic manufacturer as well as in Pakistan. And the way we've done that is not only through the technical expertise, but also by providing, donating active pharmaceutical ingredient to really accelerate that supply production. And in addition to that, just -- because that will take a little bit of time, that takes a few weeks to get it to finished product, we also donated, working very closely with the Indian government -- we are in the process -- first shipment went out early last week of donating over 455,000 -- 450,000 vials for Indian patients. And so making sure that we can not -- we don't only ramp up production for India, but also ramping up production for the 125 other countries that we're supporting that are low-income countries to make sure they have enough supply.

Thanks very much, Johanna.

What steps does Gilead plan to take in 2021 to increase Veklury pricing transparency?

Again, I think, Johanna, that might be a question for you, please.

Sure. So we have been very transparent. I'm going to bring us back to about a year ago. As we work through pricing and value of remdesivir, we basically launched remdesivir commercially to try to -- with the one goal. One goal was around ensuring access as quickly as possible and affordability around the world. And so for developed countries, we launched at one price, and that's the $390 per vial. This price was well below the value that it offers in addition to well below the savings, the health care savings it offered for hospitals. And so we felt at that level, there was always going to be a return for those health care centers and hospitals as we move forward. We obviously had a different strategy that I just touched on with our low and some middle-income countries with the voluntary licenses that we basically gave our technology -- technical know-how royalty-free during the pandemic to make sure that it was affordable for those low-income countries. But we feel very confident in the transparency from day 1 of pricing with Veklury and also have heard back from health care facilities, hospitals, understanding that they're actually saving money by using Veklury in light of the data that we've shown with the ACTT-1 study.

Our next question is whether Gilead will submit remdesivir for approval for veterinary use? For the moment, China is supplying on the black market GS-441524 and we are not. How come?

Thank you. I would ask Merdad Parsey, our Chief Medical Officer, to take the question, please. Merdad?

Thanks, Dan. We are also intrigued by the anecdotal reports that have been out there on the use of various agents here to benefit animals. However, we are not really an animal health care company, and we don't plan on developing or commercializing in animal care. We have held discussions with external animal health care entities, though we would note that their interest has been on an oral formulation versus the currently available injectable formulation. We remain engaged with the animal health care community and have enabled out-licensing of GS-441524 for veterinary development and use.

Thank you. Our next question. Can you explain why Gilead shares have been an underperformer versus its biotech and pharma peers?

Thank you very much. I'll turn that question over to Andy, our Chief Financial Officer. Andy, over to you.

Dan, thanks, and thanks for the question. Of course, in answering the question, we have to -- you can look at different time periods to understand Gilead and the fact that we're a business in transition. So we have been building momentum more recently, as most of you know. But again, it's a backdrop. We're a business in transition. We've been building from our foundation in virology with viral hepatitis and HIV into a company with an expanded portfolio that Dan mentioned earlier in -- including in oncology and inflammation. We've also showed how nimble we could be with Veklury in 2020, and we're proud of the impact that we've had in pandemic as both Dan and Johanna mentioned. Through our internal and business development efforts that brought in magrolimab, Trodelvy and Hepcludex amongst other products or product candidates, we now have a 50% larger pipeline across a more diversified set of therapeutic areas that add near-term revenue opportunities together with a number of key clinical readouts on deck this year that our shareholders are focused on. We've highlighted those clinical events that are important to us in the materials that we posted with both our year-end call as well as our recent first quarter conference call, and I would encourage all of you to study those materials. So in summary, the momentum is building as we shape the future of Gilead, and it's an exciting year for us with data to share across oncology, cell therapy and our HIV business and portfolio. We recognize the patients that investors have needed to show as we've transformed our business model from virology into a more diversified company with likes of high-quality opportunities or shots on goal across a number of therapeutic areas. We believe that the diversification was critical to the long-term sustainability and growth of Gilead, and our future is no longer tied to the clinical and commercial success of just 1 or 2 products. It's been a challenging path. It's not easy to transform a company of our size, but 1 that we believe sets Gilead up to be stronger and more durable over time. I'd also just touch on Veklury once again. We're proud of the role that we've played, as I mentioned earlier, but it certainly added a volatility that's not always welcome on the investor side. We're managing through this and note that in addition to helping patients, this has also added a very healthy cash flow that supports our efforts to grow and diversify our business. Thanks for the question.

Thank you. Are you considering the issue of bonus shares? Are you considering issue of onetime special dividend?

Great. Again, over to you, Andy, please. Thank you.

Sure. And thanks for these questions as well. It's a relatively straightforward answer. No, we are not currently planning for either a stock dividend paid in shares or a special onetime dividend. We are committed to our cash dividend and growing the cash dividend over time, as we've said repeatedly on our quarterly calls. But in the context of broader capital allocation plan that also includes share repurchases. Again, Dan mentioned that earlier as well as our first priority, which is our internal and external R&D investments.

Thank you. Shifting gears with it. Does your company use embryonic stem cells in any of its products or procedures?

So Merdad, please?

Sure. Thanks for the question. No, Gilead doesn't use any human pluripotent embryonic stem cells.

Thank you. Will Gilead commit to joining the AMR Action Fund, a coalition of 20 health companies contributing $10 billion to bring 2 to 4 new antibiotics to market in the next decade?

Great. So maybe I'll answer that question. First of all, I think the AMR Action Fund is important work, in particular, in the area of antimicrobial resistance. Our focus to public health is -- for decades now, has not been on bacterial infections and antibiotics. And therefore, we are not participating in the AMR fund, but we are -- we will continue to invest significantly in our antiviral portfolio, and we don't want to dilute our focus from our antivirals that solve important problems in the public health space. As an example, as part of our R&D efforts, we're, of course, focusing on addressing resistance in antivirals. Lenacapavir is 1 clear example that represents a first-in-class HIV drug with new mechanisms in our first indication that we'll have -- we'll be filing in mid-2021 is for the treatment of people with HIV who have multi-drug-resistant viruses. Similarly in HBV, and we are focused on curative strategies with new classes of drugs that would be active against HBV strains resistance to current drugs. And we'll continue to focus our efforts on emerging viruses which allowed us to be prepared and ready to respond to the pandemic we did with remdesivir. So we're firmly committed to public health, firmly committed to resistance, but our focus is on antivirals and not on antibiotics.

Thank you. What do you consider the 3 most important components of the Gilead culture?

Well, that's a great question. As I've said before, I think the 2 that brought me to Gilead and many of my peers and colleagues and the thousands of colleagues that work for us has been our focus on science and the high-level expertise we have within science in the therapy areas that we are focused on. And the second issue, which is, I would say, equally important is our intrinsic motivation for access strategies around the world for our medicine. Gilead pioneered access strategies for HIV medicines decades ago, and it continues to be at the forefront of making sure that any innovation that comes out of Gilead also has access to patients around the world, including the developed and the developing world. So I think those 2 elements of our culture will remain into the future. And I guess the third bucket of cultural elements that I'll comment on is the excitement we all have around growing into new therapeutic areas. So maintaining our leadership and our responsibility to patients in antivirals, particularly in HIV and hepatitis. And now taking that expertise and expanding that to oncology, to inflammatory disorders and part of that cultural evolution is bringing in new expertise into the company, pushing decision-making down to those individuals that are in the best position to make those types of decisions for speed and urgency, always with the patients in mind. And really growing into our skin, so to speak, as we expand from here on the next chapter of Gilead, which we are firmly in now, to make a bigger impact for patients across the globe. And so I think there's a combination of both tried and true culture elements of Gilead and new culture elements that are forming who we are in the future.

Chairman, that concludes our session for questions and comments relating to the presentation. Stockholders are reminded that they may contact the company's Investor Relations team with questions and comments after the conclusion of this meeting. Please see the rules of conduct and procedures posted on the virtual meeting portal for additional information.

On behalf of our Board of Directors and management team, I want to thank all of our stockholders for joining us for today's annual meeting. Thank you for your investment in Gilead and your continued support of our mission to bring patients innovative treatments that improve care in areas of unmet medical need. We hope that you, your families and your colleagues stay safe and healthy. Thank you very much.

This concludes the Gilead Sciences, Inc. 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. You may now disconnect. Thank you very much.