Clearly, the Solution is Stronger and Longer Patents

It looks like Gilead Sciences delayed the introduction of safer HIV medications because they want to extend the monopoly rents on older drugs.

What's the destruction of some patients' bone marrow and kidneys against more profits? Priorities man:

In 2005, Gilead Sciences notified federal regulators that it was suspending development of a potentially safer, more potent HIV-fighting drug than the one on the market. The company did not restart its Food and Drug Administration application until 2010. Now the five-year delay of a promising drug is at the core of accusations by advocates that Gilead improperly exploited the patent system at the expense of patient health.

An HIV-prevention group called PrEP4All Collaboration filed a petition Wednesday with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office contending Gilead knew its new, improved drug — approved in 2015 and now part of Gilead’s combination therapies Genvoya and Descovy — was safer. But it alleged Gilead postponed development so it could continue to gain monopoly profits from its older combination HIV drugs, including Viread and Truvada, for a longer period,before those drugs went off patent and faced generic competition.

Gilead used the delaying tactic even though the older drugs posed more risks to bone and kidney health, PrEP4All alleged.

This is some seriously evil sh%$:

The group is asking the Patent and Trademark Office to reject Gilead’s request for three extra years of patent life on the newer drug, called tenofovir alafenamide, or TAF. Odds of success are steep because the patent office will review such third-party petitions only in “extraordinary’’ circumstances, according to its rules.

“Gilead has not only intentionally delayed clinical development of a drug to artificially manipulate its eligibility for a patent-term extension, but it has done so despite the apparent harm to patients,’’ said Christopher Morten, who is supervising attorney at New York University’s Technology Policy and Law Clinic, who filed the petition on behalf of PrEP4All.

Indeed.

One of the main drivers of inequality in our society is sh%$ like this.

It is a tax on the rest of us that goes into the pockets of companies that would never even consider the public good in their decisions.

I'm not sure that we can thow these guys in jail, but we can fix the system that they exploit to do this.