Piper Jaffray Comments on Gilead Sciences' Licensing Agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim

Piper Jaffray has published a research report on Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) after the company announced that it has signed a licensing agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim to increase the development and commercialization of BI's HIV-treatment portfolio.

In the report, Piper Jaffray writes, "We view this deal as incrementally positive as it provides an additional set of compounds, albeit very early stage, which can be integrated into Gilead's existing HIV portfolio to create new once daily combination pills. We believe the licensing of BI's HIV assets further reduces Gilead's reliance on Complera and Quad to offset the impact of upcoming patent cliff. Deal terms were not disclosed but we expect they are likely consistent with other licensing deals for early stage clinical assets."

Piper Jaffray reiterates its Overweight rating and $54 price target on Gilead Sciences, which closed yesterday at $39.15 and is currently trading down $0.12 today since market open