The emblem of Gilead Sciences pharmaceutical company is seen in Oceanside, California, April 29, 2020.
Mike Blake | Reuters
A Delaware federal court jury on Tuesday cleared Gilead Sciences of civil claims by the U.S. government that the corporate violated patents held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for an HIV prevention drug.
The federal government sued Gilead in 2019, arguing that the corporate was profiting off CDC patents through the corporate’s sales of Truvada and Descovy, oral medications taken to forestall HIV infection.
But jurors after a multiday trial found that the federal government’s patent claims on the HIV prevention regimen called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, weren’t valid.
“Today’s decision confirms our longstanding belief that we’ve at all times had the rights to make Truvada and Descovy for PrEP available to all who need it,” said Gilead general counsel Deb Telman in a press release.
“Gilead will proceed to champion collaborations, including our efforts with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and CDC that span greater than 15 years, as all of us work together toward our common goal to finish the HIV epidemic for everybody, all over the place,” Telman said.
HHS, the parent entity of the CDC, didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the decision.
Gilead’s combined worldwide sales of Truvada and Descovy were about $2 billion in 2022, in response to company financial statements.
The federal government claimed that the CDC within the mid-2000s discovered that two drugs, emtricitabine and tenofovir, were highly effective in stopping HIV infection.
Truvada and Descovy each contain emtricitabine and tenofovir. But Gilead said it invented these drugs, and that the concept of using Truvada to forestall HIV was well-known when the U.S. government filed for the patents.
PrEP has played an important role in reducing the number of recent HIV infections in communities that face a better risk from the virus, equivalent to men who’ve sex with other men.
Scientists have tried for many years to develop a vaccine against HIV. But those efforts thus far have been unsuccessful.
About 40 million people worldwide have died from HIV for the reason that epidemic began within the Nineteen Eighties, in response to the World Health Organization. Greater than 80 million people have been infected.
In 2021, there have been 38 million people living with HIV, in response to WHO data.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the proper name of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
