Senators demand USPTO probe into Gilead allegations
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is coming under increasing pressure to review allegations that Gilead delayed development of its latest HIV drug in order to maximise profits.
Senators including Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris added their names to a letter to the USPTO drafted by senator Debbie Stabenow and Carolyn Maloney.
The allegations were originally made by the PrEP4All campaign in a submission to the USPTO earlier this month.
According to the campaign, Gilead delayed development of Descovy (tenofovir alafenamide/embicitrane) in order to maximise profits while it still had patent exclusivity on its earlier HIV drugs such as Truvada.
The PrEP4All submission alleged that Gilead held back on efforts to bring Descovy to market while knowing that it was a safer and more effective alternative to Truvada and other tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) based drugs.
According to the campaign, and high-profile Democratic politicians, these are sufficient grounds to deny Gilead an extension of its patents.
Gilead spokesperson Ryan McKeel has denied the allegations, stating that “any implication that Gilead delayed the development of a drug known to be safer than [TDF] is false”.
The pharmaceutical company is currently seeking an extension on its patent term for tenofovir alafenamide (TAF), the active ingredient in Descovy.
The letter sent by Democratic lawmakers last week said that, if the allegations are true, “it is hard to see how justice or the public interest would be served by extending patent protection for TAF beyond 2022”.
Gilead is looking to extend the patents covering TAF-based anti-HIV drugs until 2025.
Last week, LSIPR reported that presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had also written to the USPTO, condemning Gilead’s behaviour as “deceitful and immoral”.
Gilead is currently fighting a patent infringement suit against the US government, which has accused the company of infringing patents owned by the Centres for Disease Control (CDC).
The government claims that Gilead has reaped billions in profits off publicly-funded research which contributed to the discovery of Truvada and Descovy as PrEP.
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