By Blake Brittain
(Reuters) – Gilead Sciences and the U.S. government have settled a billion-dollar patent dispute over Gilead’s HIV prevention drugs Truvada and Descovy, according to a Wednesday filing in Delaware federal court.
The settlement follows a victory for Gilead in a 2023 jury trial on the government’s patent infringement allegations.
Gilead General Counsel Deborah Telman said in a statement that the agreement “allows Gilead to continue to focus its resources on its mission to discover, develop, and deliver innovative therapeutics to people with life-threatening diseases.”
Spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not immediately respond to a request for comment and more information about the settlement.
Foster City, California-based Gilead collaborated with the CDC in the mid-2000s to test if Gilead’s Truvada could prevent transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in addition to treating it. The federal government said Gilead failed to compensate the CDC for discovering that Truvada can prevent HIV infections.
The lawsuit claimed Gilead “exaggerated” its role in developing the drug’s HIV-prevention regimen, known as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, ignored the CDC’s contributions and refused to license the CDC’s patents.
The government said in a pre-trial court filing it was entitled to up to $691 million in damages from Truvada and $311 million from Gilead’s related drug Descovy. Gilead earned more than $1.8 billion from U.S. sales of Descovy and Truvada in 2023.
A Washington, D.C. federal court determined in a separate lawsuit in 2022 that the government breached research agreements with Gilead by applying for the patents without giving the company sufficient notice.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by David Bario and Bill Berkrot)
