Johanna Mercier
Chief Commercial Officer at Gilead Sciences
Thanks, Dan, and good afternoon, everyone.
The commercial organization delivered a very strong start to the year and continued to build on the momentum we saw in 2022, to set a firm foundation for continued execution and growth in 2023. As our results show on Slide 7, each of our core franchises delivered year-over-year growth led by HIV and oncology, and total product sales excluding Veklury totaled $5.7 billion, up 15% Year-over-Year. Including Veklury, total product sales were $6.3 billion, down 3% driven by lower Veklury sales associated with fewer COVID-19 hospitalizations.
On Slide 8, HIV sales were up 13% year-over-year to $4.2 billion, driven by favorable pricing dynamics, higher demand and lower inventory drawdowns. Quarter-over-quarter, sales were down 12%, associated with the normal seasonality we typically experience in first quarter. As a reminder, at the start of the year, patient co-pays and deductibles reset, which had an impact on average realized prices and market growth. We expect these pricing impacts to normalize through the remainder of the year. And we also see typically a buildup in inventory in the fourth quarter, followed by meaningful inventory drawdowns in the first quarter.
Following a focused effort to better manage this dynamic, we're pleased to see less of an impact than we have historically on both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year basis, highlighting our goal of better matching product delivery with end user demand. We expect these efforts to contribute to a more stable quarter-over-quarter growth in our HIV business, as compared to prior years.
Turning to Sunlenca. First quarter sales of $4 million was very much in-line with our expectations. Sunlenca is an important option for the small number of people living with HIV who have developed resistance and have few if any other options. We are leveraging the launch to engage with providers and the community ahead of lenacapavir's potential launches in prevention and treatment. Overall, the HIV treatment market grew approximately 2% year-over-year in the US, and almost 4% in Europe, tracking in-line with our expectations for annual growth of 2% to 3%. And in prevention, awareness continues to grow with the US PrEP market up over 19% year-over-year.
Moving to Slide 9. Biktarvy sales of $2.7 billion were up 24% year-over-year, driven by higher demand, as well as favorable pricing and inventory dynamics. Biktarvy continues to cement itself as the therapy of choice for people living with HIV, now capturing a treatment market-share of 46% in the US, up 3% year-over-year, and representing a growth rate that has impressively outpaced new and existing regimens. Moreover, Biktarvy has maintained its leading position for new starts across the US, Europe and other major markets, as well as in treatment switches across most major markets including the US.
On Descovy, sales were $449 million in the quarter, up 20% year-over-year. Demand for Descovy for PrEP remained strong at 14% year-over-year. Descovy for PrEP once again maintained its greater than 40% market share. The continued resilience of our PrEP business despite availability of other prevention options, including generics, provides a solid foundation as we make progress towards the potential approval and launch of lenacapavir for PrEP.
Moving to Slide 10. The Liver disease portfolio was up 6% year-over-year to $675 million, highlighting the continuing contribution of our viral hepatitis medicines to patients and the Gilead portfolio. In HCV, sales were $445 million, up 12% year-over-year, driven by favorable pricing dynamics and timing of purchases by the Department of Corrections. HBV and HDV sales were $230 million, down 2% year-over-year, primarily due to pricing dynamics outside of the US. We continue to expect HCV start to trend down over time, given the curative nature of therapy, with some offset from HBV and HDV. In the meantime, we are pleased to observe solid and stable market shares across all of our Liver portfolio.
On to Slide 11, and as we expected, Veklury sales of $573 million were down year-over-year, and sequentially, as COVID-related infections became less severe and hospitalizations remain below peak levels. As a reminder, the winter surge occurred earlier than we had expected, beginning in the fourth quarter and lasting only through the beginning of Q1. As Veklury's use tracks hospitalization, its sales are volatile and highly subject to surges and the overall path of the pandemic. Veklury is backed by clinical data and real-world evidence that reinforces its clinical profile and despite the lower hospitalization rates in the quarter, Veklury's share of hospitalized patients treated for COVID-19 grew modestly, maintaining well over 50% share in the United States.
Moving to oncology and beginning with Trodelvy on Slide 12. Sales of $222 million were up 52% year-over-year and 14% sequentially, driven by strong growth both in the US and Europe. Following US approval in early-February, we're off to a strong start with Trodelvy in pretreated HR positive HER2 negative metastatic breast cancer, as some clinicians moved quickly to make this new option available for patients in this setting. We look forward to extending Trodelvy's reach to these patients in Europe, where a decision is expected later this year.
Of course, our efforts here are underpinned by the successes and learnings in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer or TNBC. From vast expansion of the field force last year and a strong body of data across a number of tumor types, more physicians are recognizing Trodelvy's clinically meaningful overall survival benefit. This recognition is not just in metastatic TNBC, but also in HR positive HER2 negative metastatic breast cancer regardless of HER2 negative status.
Now on to Slide 13. Cell therapy sales in the first quarter were $448 million, up 64% year-over-year and 7% quarter-over-quarter. We're pleased with the continued growth of Yescarta, with sales up 70% year-over-year to $359 million, primarily driven by growth in the second and third-line setting for relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma. Sequentially, sales were up 6%, driven in-part by strong demand and favorable pricing dynamics, both primarily in Europe.
Turning to Tecartus. Sales were $89 million, up 40% year-over-year and 8% sequentially, driven by growing demand for both relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma and adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Looking ahead, we continue to work to raise awareness of cell therapies and increase cost share. We believe that compelling data including ZUMA-7's recent positive overall survival results, in addition to peer dataset in cell therapy space, will support broader adoption over time.
In summary, it's been a positive start to the year with our current product portfolio of virology and oncology medicines, delivering strong performance. We look forward to maintaining this momentum through the rest of the year and beyond. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Merdad for an update on our pipeline. Merdad?