The other day, I posted a story about Congress and the FDA being asked to investigate Gilead Sciences for their profit grabbing efforts that place their bank coffers as a higher priority than the people their medicines could help. The linked story here adds information to that claim, and discusses the company’s next big upcoming medication, Genvoya.
Drug companies make the claim that they must charge so much and protect their patents or they won’t be able to afford the expenses associated with new drug development. But is drug development more controlled by what will impact their profit margin? Of course, drug companies like any businesses have a right to make profits, but how many billions is enough? And why aren’t HIV/AIDS activists speaking out against such profit hogging?
More than a decade ago, researchers at Gilead Sciences thought they had a breakthrough: a new version of the company’s key HIV medicine that was less toxic to kidneys and bones. Clinical trials of the new compound on HIV-positive patients in Los Angeles and several other cities seemed to support their optimism. Patients needed just a fraction of the dose, creating the chance of far fewer dangerous side effects. But in 2004, just as the Foster City biotech firm was preparing for a second and larger round of patient studies, Gilead executives stopped the research. The results of the early patient studies would go unpublished for years as the original medication – tenofovir – became one of the world’s most-prescribed drugs for HIV, with $11 billion in annual sales.More than six years later, though, in 2010, Gilead restarted those trials. The new version of the drug, which the company says is safer, was approved in November under the brand name Genvoya.