LOS ANGELES, CA. – In a recent lawsuit filed against Gilead Sciences Inc., patients with HIV and AIDS are alleging that the company’s tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) drugs caused them to develop bone and kidney injuries. The lawsuit further alleges that Gilead knew of a safer medication but failed to bring it to market in order to continue profiting from TDF.
The AIDS Health Foundation is funding this lawsuit, which was filed earlier in 2019 in Los Angeles, California. The plaintiffs in the suit are from a dozen different states, and all of them claim that they took TDF-based medications for HIV, AIDS, or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The medications, they say, caused them to develop bone and kidney injuries about which they were not warned.
The lawsuit states that Gilead has long known about the potential for patient injuries from TDF, but it did not act to warn doctors or patients about the risks. The company also knew about a safer medication, called alternate tenofovir alafenamide (TAF), according to the suit, but it withheld the medication from the market because it wanted to maintain TDF profits.
Gilead is the manufacturer for the branded drugs Atripla, Complera, Stribild, Truvada, and Viread. The suit claims that the company wanted to benefit from the full duration of its patent protection on these drugs and only planned to release the safer drug when the patent for TDF expired. The plaintiffs claim that due to the failures by Gilead, they have lost bone density and/or developed kidney disease from taking TDF medications.
The lawsuit claims damages under the theories of defective design, failure to warn, breach of warranty, and fraud. It is not clear if a trial date has been set for the case, though the lawsuit filing demands a trial.
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