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6 December 2022Big PharmaStaff Writer

Gilead prevails in US government dispute

Agency found to have breached deal regarding research | Pharma firm accused of piggybacking on public research | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Drugmaker Gilead has secured a victory against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), after a court found that the CDC breached research agreements related to HIV treatments.

In an opinion unsealed on Tuesday, November 30 (and handed down on November 21), the US Court of Federal Claims concluded that the CDC had broken the research agreements by failing to notify Gilead of patent applications the agency had filed to cover HIV drug inventions.

US judge Charles Lettow rejected the CDC’s claims that it had promptly notified Gilead.

“The government’s contentions in this regard are unavailing. It did not promptly notify Gilead of the patent applications, which were ‘made, conceived or reduced to practice’ under the material transfer agreements,” said the judge.

Gilead has sued the US government back in April 2020, accusing it of improperly filing for patents covering HIV drug Truvada (emtricitabine/tenofovir).

According to Gilead, the government violated a series of agreements covering the parties’ research collaboration on HIV prevention.

Gilead alleged that, under the terms of the agreement, it provided the CDC with antiviral compounds free of charge in exchange for the CDC notifying it of any discoveries that arose from its research into HIV.

The government patents at the heart of the suit also form the basis of the US government’s complaint against Gilead, filed in 2019 at the US District Court for the District of Delaware.

According to the CDC’s suit, Gilead had been piggybacking on public research to earn billions from its HIV drugs.

In a letter filed with the Delaware court earlier this week, Gilead said that the ruling was “relevant to at least Gilead’s unclean-hands defence here, which is premised, in part, on the government’s breach of the same agreements”.

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More on this story

Big Pharma
29 April 2020   Gilead has escalated its dispute with the US federal government by filing a new lawsuit accusing it of improperly filing for patents covering HIV drug Truvada.
Americas
23 August 2022   Class-action alleges pharma company blocked rival HIV drug | Health insurance trust convinces judge a reverse payment may have been made.

More on this story

Big Pharma
29 April 2020   Gilead has escalated its dispute with the US federal government by filing a new lawsuit accusing it of improperly filing for patents covering HIV drug Truvada.
Americas
23 August 2022   Class-action alleges pharma company blocked rival HIV drug | Health insurance trust convinces judge a reverse payment may have been made.