Gilead Sciences (GILD) has accused the U.S. government of breaching several contracts and “secretly” obtaining patents stemming from research that led to the ground-breaking Truvada HIV-prevention pill.
In a lawsuit filed late Friday, the drug maker claimed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention violated the terms of a 15-year-old collaboration by failing to notify the company of patents that were later sought and awarded on the research.
At issue are the terms of four “material transfer” agreements in which Gilead provided compounds to the CDC, which funded academic work into the use of antivirals for preventing HIV. In another deal, the company provided antivirals for a clinical trial in Botswana. The deals, which kicked off years of research, were reached in 2004, and the CDC subsequently obtained patents more than a decade later.
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