Patently Absurd

US government files case against a cash-gouging drug giant

The government’s patent lawsuit against Gilead indicates it is tired of being milked by pharma companies

act against the price gouging. Current policies force Americans to pay twice for their medicines: first through their taxes to fund research into new therapies and again for those very medicines.

Last year, healthcare providers, patient groups and civil society groups launched a targeted campaign urging HHS and its agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to act. Among the 42 who pushed a petition in spring 2019, led by the PrEP4All Collaboration, are the influential Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale Law School and Public Citizen.

Their petition underlines one of the strangest ironies of the US healthcare system. Funding of billions of dollars for public research into disease treatment by CDC goes to fill the coffers of private drug firms while financially exhausting patients by their predatory pricing. In the case of Truvada and Descovy, the irony goes deeper: the patents are held by CDC! Health groups say that since 2015 Gilead has been infringing a portfolio of patents owned by the government which protect the use of Truvada and Descovy—the generic drugs are tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/ emtricitabine—as a preventive, too, meaning PrEP is also covered.

That the government is listening becomes clear from the case filed by HHS. The petition says Gilead has “wilfully and deliberatively” infringed its patents after refusing attempts by HHS to license these. As a result, “Gilead has profited from research funded by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and reaped billions from PrEP”. How the case pans out is vital not just for the US but the world, too.