Shares of biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc. jumped Monday after a Rodman & Renshaw analyst said Gilead is poised to benefit from a government recommendation that HIV testing become routine.

Analyst Michael G. King Jr. upgraded Gilead's stock to "Market Outperform" from "Market Perform" and set a $76 price target, saying Gilead is best poised to benefit from more testing and identification of HIV and that physicians expect the pool of patients receiving therapy for HIV to increase over the next few years.

Gilead's stock gained $2.17, or 3.3 percent, to $67.39 on the Nasdaq in morning trading. Shares have traded between $50.13 and $70 over the last 52 weeks.

In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines recommending that all Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 receive testing for HIV as part of a normal visit to the doctor. The recommendations were made as part of an effort to identify the estimated 250,000 to 300,000 Americans who have the virus and don't know it.

Foster City, Calif.-based Gilead makes several HIV treatments, including Viread, Emtriva and Truvada. Gilead contributes two of three components of a once-a-day HIV treatment the company markets called Atripla, which was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in July. Bristol-Myers Squibb contributes the third component.

"We are significantly increasing our expectations for sales of Atripla on the basis of our analysis of prescription drug trends since (Atripla's) launch," he wrote in a note to investors.

Health officials place the number of new HIV cases at 40,000 each year, King said. He raised his fourth-quarter sales estimate for Atripla to $172 million from $96 million and full-year estimate to $240 million from $164 million.

The number is expected to rise sharply in 2007, with a forecast of $1.12 billion in revenue.