Gilead, Teva Cleared of Pay-to-Delay HIV Drug Antitrust Claims

 A California jury found that Gilead Sciences Inc. and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. didn’t engage in an anticompetitive conspiracy to delay generic versions of HIV treatment Truvada and other drugs.

The unanimous verdict Friday from the US District Court for the Northern District of California affirmed that a 2014 patent settlement between Foster City, Calif.-based Gilead and Israel-based Teva didn’t violate antitrust law.

Consumers and other direct purchasers, including the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, filed the antitrust lawsuit in 2019, alleging that Gilead maintained a monopoly in the HIV drug market by unlawfully extending patent protection for its drugs to delay generic competitors’ entry. Plaintiffs sought $3.6 billion in damages.

Gilead allegedly paid Teva, a generic drugmaker, a “reverse payment” worth $1 billion in a patent settlement to shelve Teva’s generic versions of Truvada and another similar drug, the lawsuit claimed. In reverse payments, a patent-owner company pays an alleged patent infringer, typically a generic drugmaker, to delay selling the generic version.

The companies’ agreement resulted in higher prices for the HIV drugs, plaintiffs claimed.

But the verdict affirmed that the companies’ settlement “was not a reverse payment,” Gilead said in a Friday statement.

Teva didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is In re HIV Antitrust Litigation, N.D. Cal., No. 3:19-cv-02573, 6/30/23.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/antitrust/gilead-teva-cleared-of-pay-to-delay-hiv-drug-antitrust-claims