Merrill maintains Gilead Sciences at neutral

Gilead Sciences Inc. was maintained at neutral by Merrill Lynch analyst Eric Ende after the company settled its dispute with Roche over their development and licensing agreement for Tamiflu. Gilead will receive a higher royalty on Tamiflu sales and an option to co-promote the product. Ende raised the earnings-per-share estimates for 2005 to $1.60 from $1.54 and for 2006 to $2.06 from $1.88, but noted that the co-promotion option will not affect the royalty structure and the incremental cost of Tamiflu sales, therefore, may not be financially accretive. Shares of the Foster City, Calif.-based biopharmaceutical company were down 88 cents, or 1.58%, at $54.75 on volume of 22,019,616 shares versus the three-month running average of 3,731,640 shares.

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