Growing Demands to Use 1980 Law to Break a Patent

Gilead Sciences holds a patent of the drug Truvada, the only approved medication for pre-exposure prophylaxis, a course of treatment that can help reduce the risk of contracting HIV. A growing number of protesters claim it is too expensive and should be made available to everyone. The drug was developed in partnership with  The Department of Health and Human Services, which holds the patent and licenses Gilead to sell it. The cost to patients has risen to nearly $2000 per month in comparison to about $100 per year in  other parts of the world. It’s free in New Zealand. A 1980 law, the Bayh-Dole Act, allows the government to break a patent on a drug developed from research partially paid for by federal funds. Gilead claims that the government’s patents are invalid, and a deal the government nixed for royalties from the company would have generated funds that could be used to distribute the drug more widely. New pharmaceutical compounds are routinely licensed to private companies that take them to market. The CDC and the National Institutes of Health patented more than 2,500 inventions created with taxpayer dollars since 1976, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.