Johanna Mercier
Chief Commercial Officer at Gilead Sciences
Thanks, Dan, and good afternoon, everyone. Starting on Slide seven, total product sales of $6.2 billion were up 21% year-over-year, primarily reflecting Veklury, which was not a contributor to revenue in the second quarter of 2020. On Slide eight, Veklury second quarter revenues of $829 million declined sequentially, reflecting the impact of higher vaccination rates and lower infection and hospitalization in many regions. While hospitalizations trended lower in the second quarter, Veklury remains the therapy of choice in three out of five patients hospitalized with COVID-19. We estimate that since the launch in May 2020, roughly seven million patients globally have been treated with remdesivir. It's truly remarkable and encouraging to see how remdesivir continues to play such a key role in fighting this global pandemic. Excluding Veklury, total product sales of $5.3 billion were up 5% year-over-year. We saw growth in Cell Therapy and HCV in addition to new revenue contributions from Trodelvy and more modestly Hepcludex for HDV. Additionally, other product revenues of $291 million grew 20% year-over-year, driven by increased demand for AmBisome outside of the U.S. to treat mucormycosis, which has seen a rise in incidents in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Sequentially, we saw 9% growth for total product sales, excluding Veklury, primarily driven by growth in Biktarvy.
Moving to Slide nine, HIV product sales were $3.9 billion, up 8% sequentially and down 2% year-over-year. Compared to the second quarter of 2020, total HIV revenue reflected strong Biktarvy growth that more than offset the $322 million lower revenue from Truvada and Atripla following their loss of exclusivity. Compared to last quarter, HIV grew $288 million, reflecting customary seasonal inventory dynamics and growing demand for treatment. Biktarvy revenue of $2 billion was up 24% year-over-year and 9% sequentially, with quarter-over-quarter growth, primarily driven by increased demand. Biktarvy remains the number once prescribed therapy in the U.S. across naive, switch and continuing patients and remains number one in naive across all EU5 countries. Approximately 70% of switches from both Gilead and non-Gilead regimens, result in incremental revenue. Overall, and despite the ongoing impact of the pandemic, Biktarvy continues to gain market share with 1% share growth versus last quarter in both the U.S. as well as the EU5. Descovy revenues of $435 million grew 21% sequentially due to a modest improvement in the demand for prep and more favorable inventory and pricing dynamics that we typically see in the second quarter relative to the first. As we highlighted in prior quarters, we've been working with payers to ensure patients' community to have access to Descovy in light of entry of generic alternatives for Truvada. We're really pleased to see the strong sequential growth in Descovy, and we continue to maintain mid-40% share despite generic impacts. Year-over-year, Descovy grew 4%, largely due to higher demand for PrEP. And overall, PrEP demand is showing signs of recovery and is expected to continue to improve as pandemic restrictions phase out.
Earlier this month, federal FAQs for the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force were released. It provided greater clarity as to the importance of PrEP in ending the epidemic, and we're really encouraged by this recent development. We hope it will help to minimize the barriers of PrEP use going forward. Before I transition to other products, I just wanted to take a moment to share some perspective on the HIV treatment market, given the longer-than-expected pandemic impact. In regions outside of the U.S., such as Europe, we're beginning to see signs of recovery in the dynamic market with second quarter trends generally in line with our expectations. In the U.S., however, the pace of the pandemic recovery was slower than we expected in this last quarter. And while we're seeing signs of recovery in PrEP and some sequential growth in the treatment market, it's clear that it will take several quarters for treatment to return to pre-pandemic levels. In treatment, there are really two pandemic-related headwinds that we observed. First, lower HIV screening and diagnosis resulting in lower treatment initiation; and second, due to the limited support services available during the pandemic, we've seen a higher number of patients discontinue their HIV treatments. Taken together, these two factors have reduced the number of active patients on HIV therapy entering 2021, thereby reducing the overall volume of new and refill prescriptions we would expect to see in 2021.
We did, however, see growth resume from this lower base in the second quarter. After prior quarter-over-quarter decline, second quarter U.S. HIV treatment prescriptions grew 2% and we expect the market to grow at historical rates once screening and diagnosis rates return to pre-pandemic levels. To continue our efforts to advance progress against the HIV epidemic, we are partnering with health care professionals, advocacy groups and policymakers to raise awareness of the unique challenges COVID-19 poses to HIV screening, diagnosis and adherence. Our goal is to help health care providers ensure that patients continue to be diagnosed and treated. Given the strength of the demand fundamentals for Biktarvy, Descovy for PrEP and other Gilead HIV products, we remain confident in our competitive positioning now that many communities aren't using social distancing requirements.
In the meantime, we continue to see strength in underlying treatment demand with no material changes in the competitive landscape, with our total Gilead treatment market share holding steady at 75% in the U.S. and just under 50% in Europe despite competition and the entry of new generics. Next, on Slide 10, HCV product sales in the second quarter were $549 million, up 23% compared to last year, but patient starts remain well below pre-pandemic levels. The growth reflects a modest sequential recovery in HCV patient starts in the U.S. in Q2 2021, in addition to an artificially low Q2 of 2020 that was impacted by unfavorable government rebate adjustments. We'll be watching for further signs of recovery in the third quarter. Both U.S. and EU Gilead market shares remain steady at around 60% and 50%, respectively.
Moving to Slide 11, HBV and HDV product sales were $237 million, up 8% year-over-year with improving patient starts on Vemlidy, particularly in ex U.S. markets. In its first full quarter as part of Gilead Hepcludex contributed $7 million and is currently available in France, Germany and Austria. We're excited to be working with the various reimbursement authorities to increase patient access and expect to secure full reimbursement in the major European markets in 2022. Moving to Trodelvy on Slide 12, product sales in the second quarter were $89 million, up 24% quarter-over-quarter, driven by demand for the two new indications approved in April, namely second-line plus metastatic triple-negative breast cancer and urothelial cancer. We continue to be encouraged by the positive feedback from physicians on the Phase III ASCENT data, which demonstrated a one-year medium overall survival benefit for second-line metastatic TNBC patients treated with Trodelvy. To build on this growing interest, we're increasing community awareness, especially the expanded indication to second line in TNBC.
And we expect to see growing demand as breast cancer screening ramps back up to pre-pandemic levels. IQVIA data suggests that breast cancer screening volumes were about 20% lower in the U.S. in 2020 compared to 2019. This suggests as many as 41,500 breast cancer patients have not been diagnosed during the pandemic. On behalf of Christi and the Kite team, I'm pleased to share a Cell Therapy commercial update on Slide 13. Total cell therapy product sales totaled $219 million in the second quarter, representing 39% growth year-over-year, driven by both Yescarta and Tecartus. Yescarta growth was driven by strong demand in Europe as well as successful follicular lymphoma launch in the U.S. Increased competition, particularly in third-line LBCL, continues to raise the profile of cell therapy and is positive to Kite overall. We remain confident in Yescarta's competitive profile and positioning, and are particularly proud of Kite's industry-leading manufacturing turnaround time and reliability.
Our results also reflected strong momentum from the Tecartus mantle cell lymphoma launch, highlighting the unmet medical need for MCL patients. We continue to add new indications and geographies for our cell therapy products. For example, the Fosun-Kite joint venture recently received approval in China for Yescarta as the first cell therapy to treat third-line LBCL. And we're excited to see the top line data for ZUMA-seven, getting us a step closer to second-line LBCL cell therapy. Even as we prepare for discussions with regulatory agencies later this year, commercial and manufacturing preparations are ramping up to ensure sufficient capacity and support for second-line LBCL demand in both the U.S. and in Europe. Christi is here with the team to take your questions on cell therapy later in the call.
But for now, I'll hand it over to Merdad to walk us through the pipeline updates.
