Intellectual Property Magazine
Weighing access against profit
The USgovernment has sued Gilead Sciences over the patent rights to use Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis
Steven Yu, Ryuh Patent Law
Truvada is an HIV medication sold by Gileadand has been on the market since 2004. In November 2019, the US federalgovernment
sued Gilead for infringement of patents owned by its Department ofHealth & Human Services regarding using Truvada and other
such HIVmedications for a specific type of treatment regimen called pre-exposureprophylaxis (PrEP).
1 Unlike the conventional use of HIV drugs inpatients infected with HIV, PrEP is the use of HIV drugs (by daily dosing) onpeople
who do not have HIV, but who are at very high risk of getting infectedwith HIV. Should such as a person be exposed to HIV,
the drug alreadycirculating in their body would immediately arrest the viral infection process.