Gilead Delayed Development Of Safer HIV Drug To Profit Off Monopoly, Lawsuit Claims
The lawsuit says that HIV patients suffered from as many as 10 years of "additional accumulated kidney and bone toxicity" while using the drug as the company kept the safer version on a shelf in its lab.
Los Angeles Times:
Patients Sue Gilead, Saying Drug Company Intentionally Delayed Safer HIV Medicine
Two Southern California men filed suit against Gilead Sciences on Tuesday, saying they were harmed when the drug company intentionally delayed development of a safer version of a crucial HIV medicine so that it could continue to profit from its lucrative monopoly. The lawsuit — and a similar case that seeks class-action status — says that Gilead executives knew as early as 2000 that the company's scientists had developed a less toxic form of its HIV medicine tenofovir that was less harmful to patients' kidneys and bones. (Petersen, 5/9)
In other pharmaceutical news —
The San Diego Union-Tribune:
San Diego's Hybritech Still Influences Local Biotech, 40 Years Later
When Hybritech was sold for $450 million in 1986, its executives and investors became rich. This spawned San Diego’s biotech ecosystem, a self-perpetuating cycle of growth, acquisition, and more growth. While the company has long passed from the scene, the DNA of Hybritech and its people remain firmly embedded in San Diego’s large biotech community, 40 years after its founding. ...Today San Diego County’s life science sector employs nearly 50,000 people and generates $33.6 billion in economic activity, says a report last year from San Diego-based Biocom, the life science trade group for California. Local life science research centers and companies also brought in more than $832 million in National Institutes of Health grants to San Diego during the 2016 fiscal year. (Fikes, 5/9)