Gilead: learning its I, B, Cs

Gilead Sciences Inc. has begun taking advantage of the research done by others to build out its hepatitis C pipeline. Last week, it licensed a family of small molecules with a novel mechanism from Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc. that it believes will complement both its internal HCV compounds and those that it recently licensed from Genelabs Technologies Inc.

The effort helps to fill out a pipeline left rather empty as a result of product approvals and program discontinuations. "We started out with 60 programs to look at from both academics and other companies," said EVP and CFO John Milligan...