Biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) reported Q1 CY2026 results topping the market’s revenue expectations, with sales up 4.4% year on year to $6.96 billion. The company expects the full year’s revenue to be around $30.2 billion, close to analysts’ estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $2.03 per share was 6.3% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
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Gilead Sciences (GILD) Q1 CY2026 Highlights:
- Revenue: $6.96 billion vs analyst estimates of $6.86 billion (4.4% year-on-year growth, 1.5% beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $2.03 vs analyst estimates of $1.91 (6.3% beat)
- Adjusted Operating Income: $3.27 billion vs analyst estimates of $3.12 billion (46.9% margin, 4.7% beat)
- The company lifted its revenue guidance for the full year to $30.2 billion at the midpoint from $29.8 billion, a 1.3% increase
- Management lowered its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance to -$0.85 at the midpoint, a 110% decrease
- Operating Margin: 37.2%, up from 33.5% in the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow Margin: 34.9%, up from 24.8% in the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $169.2 billion
Company Overview
From its groundbreaking work in developing the first single-tablet regimens for HIV treatment, Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) develops and markets innovative medicines for life-threatening diseases including HIV, viral hepatitis, COVID-19, and cancer.
Revenue Growth
Reviewing a company’s long-term sales performance reveals insights into its quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Over the last five years, Gilead Sciences grew its sales at a tepid 3.1% compounded annual growth rate. This was below our standard for the healthcare sector and is a tough starting point for our analysis.
We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within healthcare, a half-decade historical view may miss recent innovations or disruptive industry trends. Gilead Sciences’s annualized revenue growth of 4.1% over the last two years is above its five-year trend, which is encouraging. 
We can dig further into the company’s revenue dynamics by analyzing its most important segment, HIV. Over the last two years, Gilead Sciences’s HIV revenue averaged 1.9% year-on-year growth. This segment has lagged the company’s overall sales. 
This quarter, Gilead Sciences reported modest year-on-year revenue growth of 4.4% but beat Wall Street’s estimates by 1.5%.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 1.9% over the next 12 months, a slight deceleration versus the last two years. This projection is underwhelming and indicates its products and services will face some demand challenges.
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Adjusted Operating Margin
Adjusted operating margin is an important measure of profitability as it shows the portion of revenue left after accounting for all core expenses – everything from the cost of goods sold to advertising and wages. It’s also useful for comparing profitability across companies because it excludes non-recurring expenses, interest on debt, and taxes.
Gilead Sciences’s adjusted operating margin has risen over the last 12 months and averaged 40.3% over the last five years. On top of that, its profitability was elite for a healthcare business thanks to its efficient cost structure and economies of scale.
Analyzing the trend in its profitability, Gilead Sciences’s adjusted operating margin of 45.6% for the trailing 12 months may be around the same as five years ago, but it has increased by 19.7 percentage points over the last two years. This dynamic unfolded because its sales growth gave it operating leverage and shows it has momentum on its side.
This quarter, Gilead Sciences generated an adjusted operating margin profit margin of 46.9%, up 3.6 percentage points year on year. This increase was a welcome development and shows it was more efficient.
Earnings Per Share
Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.
Gilead Sciences’s unimpressive 2.2% annual EPS growth over the last five years aligns with its revenue performance. This tells us it maintained its per-share profitability as it expanded.
In Q1, Gilead Sciences reported adjusted EPS of $2.03, up from $1.81 in the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts’ estimates by 6.3%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Gilead Sciences’s full-year EPS of $8.37 to grow 5.4%.
Key Takeaways from Gilead Sciences’s Q1 Results
It was good to see Gilead Sciences narrowly top analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. We were also glad its EPS outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. On the other hand, its full-year EPS guidance missed. Overall, this was a weaker quarter. The stock traded down 2.7% to $130.51 immediately after reporting.
Gilead Sciences’s earnings report left more to be desired. Let’s look forward to see if this quarter has created an opportunity to buy the stock. The latest quarter does matter, but not nearly as much as longer-term fundamentals and valuation, when deciding if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
