Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) Investor Lawsuit Investigation

On November 6, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services filed a lawsuit against Gilead Sciences, accusing the company of infringing on government patents on Truvada, and the idea of “PrEP,” or pre-exposure prophylaxis, which can prevent H.I.V. with a daily pill.

According to the New York Times, the lawsuit “bluntly accused Gilead of exaggerating its role in developing pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, ignoring work by government scientists and ‘baselessly denying’ the validity of federal patents.”

The lawsuit specifically alleges that CDC researchers began studying the preventive use of HIV treatment drugs — like tenofovir, or TDF, and emtricitabine, FTC, the two compounds in a Truvada tablet — as early as 1998, before Gilead sought a patent.

Discussing the lawsuit, Alex Azar II,  the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services stated:

Gilead must respect the U.S. patent system, the groundbreaking work by researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the substantial taxpayer contributions to the development of these drugs.”

PrEP is a drug regimen in which a person at risk of contracting H.I.V. is prescribed one of two drugs to be taken once daily to prevent the infection. The drugs approved for us on this regimen, Truvada and Descovy, are both made by Gilead.  The PrEP regimen is said to cut the risk of H.I.V. infection by more than 99 percent.

The cost of Truvada has received a lot of media attention in recent years for its cost of approximately $20,000 per patient per year.  In other countries, generic versions of Truvada are said to sell for as little as $60 a year.

As reported by the New York Times,  if the court finds that Gilead’s infringement was “willful,” it could trigger a provision for enhanced damages, which could total up to $3 billion.

Our securities lawyers have recovered over a billion dollars on behalf of our clients against behemoths, such as Chase Bank, Mastercard, and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. Read more about our results.

You “shouldn’t presume that powerful banks and other powerful interests can just get away with doing bad things. Good, qualified counsel that are committed to a cause can usually figure out how to prosecute such cases effectively and prevail.”

–Eric Gibbs, award-winning securities attorney

Praise from the Courts

Federal judge in our AT&T class action:

“I’ve always found them to be extraordinary counsel in terms of their preparation and their professionalism.”

Federal judge in our Chase lawsuit (resulting in $100 million settlement):

They “fought tooth and nail, down to the wire” to achieve “the best settlement that they could under the circumstances.”

Read more about what judges say about us.