Gilead Sciences won a victory last week when a federal court judge tossed a lawsuit in which an AIDS activist group accused the drug maker of manipulating the patent system in order to thwart competition for its HIV medicines.
In its lawsuit, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation had charged that Gilead not only violated antitrust laws, but also prevented countless HIV patients from access to a newer and safer treatment. The battle was framed by AIDS activists as another instance in which the company had placed patient safety over profits, a criticism that has dogged Gilead over its pricing or hepatitis C drugs for more than two years.
At issue was tenofovir, or TDF, which until recently had been a cornerstone of the widely used combination HIV treatments sold by the company. The patent on the TDF compound expires in December 2017, and Gilead is replacing it with a modified version known as TAF. But the patent on TAF doesn’t expire until May 2022, providing another five valuable years without generic competition.
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