Case against Gilead for delaying release of safer HIV drug on solid ground, court rules

Gilead can be held re­spon­si­ble for putting off the re­lease of an HIV drug that it knew was safer than an­oth­er prod­uct it was al­ready sell­ing.

The rul­ing per­tains to a law­suit filed at the Su­pe­ri­or Court of San Fran­cis­co by 24,000 AIDS pa­tients who took Gilead’s treat­ments. In Au­gust 2023, Gilead ap­pealed to dis­miss the law­suit, which com­prised three claims.

The Cal­i­for­nia ap­pel­late court dis­missed two of the claims but on Tues­day, it de­cid­ed against dis­miss­ing the third. In do­ing so, “the court has up­end­ed es­tab­lished Cal­i­for­nia law,” a Gilead spokesper­son told End­points News in an email. Gilead will con­tin­ue to de­fend it­self and is eval­u­at­ing its apel­late op­tions, the spokesper­son added.

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