A federal court jury has cleared Gilead Sciences and Teva Pharmaceuticals of allegations that the companies struck an illegal deal that inflated prices for HIV medicines.
Last Friday’s unanimous verdict from the US District Court in California affirms that a 2014 patent settlement between US-based Gilead and Israel-based Teva didn’t violate antitrust law.
The lawsuit filed four years ago accused Gilead of using various controversial business tactics that led the US healthcare system to overspend for HIV medicines, reports Bloomberg Law.
These included so-called pay-to-delay settlements of patent litigation and other moves that purportedly stalled development of safer versions of medicines that had years left of patent protection.
Consumers and other direct purchasers filed the antitrust lawsuit in 2019, alleging that Gilead maintained a monopoly in the HIV drug market by unlawfully extending patent protection for its drugs to delay generic competitors’ entry. Plaintiffs sought $3.6bn in damages.
Gilead allegedly paid Teva, a generic drugmaker, a “reverse payment” worth $1bn in a patent settlement to shelve Teva’s generic versions of Truvada and another similar drug, the lawsuit claimed.
In reverse payments, a patent-owner company pays an alleged patent infringer, typically a generic drugmaker, to delay selling the generic version.
The companies’ agreement resulted in higher prices for the HIV drugs, plaintiffs claimed.
But the verdict affirmed that the companies’ settlement “was not a reverse payment” Gilead said afterwards.
Bloomberg Law article – Gilead, Teva Cleared of Pay-to-Delay HIV Drug Antitrust Claims (Open access)
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Generic drug manufacturers win HIV-drug appeal against Gilead
UK ruling will see Gilead lose protections for HIV drug
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