Fed­er­al claims court rules in fa­vor of Gilead in CDC Tru­va­da patent case

Gilead pulled a win last week in its on­go­ing patent bat­tle with the CDC over the HIV drug Tru­va­da for pre-ex­po­sure pro­phy­lax­is (PrEP).

The US Court of Fed­er­al Claims ruled on Nov. 21 that the gov­ern­ment breached cer­tain agree­ments with Gilead by fail­ing to prompt­ly no­ti­fy the com­pa­ny of its patent ap­pli­ca­tions for Tru­va­da for PrEP, ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments un­sealed on Wednes­day.

The is­sue traces back to around 2004 when Tru­va­da won an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval to treat HIV. Be­cause HIV is known to de­vel­op re­sis­tance to ther­a­py, pa­tients at the time were of­ten re­quired to take more than one drug at a time. Tru­va­da com­bines Gilead’s pri­or HIV drugs, Emtri­va and Viread, mak­ing life eas­i­er for pa­tients who were tak­ing sep­a­rate pills dai­ly. Short­ly af­ter, the CDC and Gilead struck up a part­ner­ship to re­search Tru­va­da’s use as a pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure pri­or to ex­po­sure.

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