HHS is tak­ing Gilead to court, seek­ing dam­ages for in­fring­ing gov­ern­ment HIV patents

Gilead ear­li­er this year fired an open­ing sal­vo by march­ing to the US Patent and Trade­mark Of­fice and re­quest­ing a re­view of the va­lid­i­ty of the patents for HIV pre­ven­ta­tive treat­ment or PrEP (pre-ex­po­sure pro­phy­lax­is) grant­ed to the HHS since 2015.  On Wednes­day, the tac­tic blew up as the US gov­ern­ment re­tort­ed by fil­ing a patent in­fringe­ment law­suit against the Cal­i­for­nia drug­mak­er.

The suit, filed on be­half of the HHS, al­leges that Gilead de­lib­er­ate­ly vi­o­lat­ed CDC’s patents, and prof­it­ed from re­search fund­ed by mil­lion’s of tax­pay­er dol­lars and has reaped bil­lions from the sale of its ther­a­pies — Tru­va­da and De­scovy — as PrEP treat­ments. The HHS has al­so claimed that the US drug­mak­er re­peat­ed­ly re­fused to li­cense the patents.

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