IP Watchdog

March 3, 2019

"In recent months, AIDS activist groups have called on Gilead and government agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to end patent protection for Truvada in order to get lower cost generic versions of the drug onto the market. #BreakThePatent is one such group that collects online signatures supporting march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, arguing that one month’s supply of Truvada only costs Gilead $6 to create. The website also contends that Gilead didn’t invent PrEP and that the federal government and U.S. taxpayers fronted 100% of the costs to develop Truvada. In late February, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson publicly endorsed the #BreakThePatent campaign, becoming one of the most prominent U.S. politicians to support march-in rights to create access to generic Truvada. ACT UP New York, an AIDS awareness group founded at the height of the epidemic during the 1980s, has also come out publicly against Gilead’s pricing of Truvada."

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/03/03/examining-truvada-breakthepatent-debate-gilead-responds/id=106906/