AIDS advocates have been bringing the heat to Gilead Sciences on its trip to investor conferences in Miami. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) used the trip as a chance to re-up an attack on “greedy Gilead,” sending its advocates to protest outside two hotels hosting the events.
The AHF has repeatedly gone after Gilead since 2021, accusing the company of taking “unlawful” actions to avoid offering its HIV drugs at a discount and highlighting an increase in the pay of CEO Daniel O'Day. In the latest attacks, AHF advocates protested outside two hotels in Miami where Andy Dickinson, chief financial officer at Gilead, and Kite executive Cindy Perettie were talking to analysts this week.
“These back-to-back Miami protests are part of an escalating AHF effort to draw attention to Gilead’s quiet campaign to undermine safety net providers and illegally restrict access to lifesaving HIV and hepatitis C treatments,” Michael Weinstein, AHF president and co-founder, said in a statement.
A video of the first protest shows around a dozen people, including two dressed as pigs, marching while chanting “hey hey, ho ho, Gilead’s greed has got to go.” Placards carried by the protesters say “stop being greedy.” Sales of Gilead’s HIV products increased (PDF) 6% to above $18 billion last year. Gifts, grants, contributions and membership fees to the AHF doubled between 2020 and 2022, rising to $77.6 million.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Gilead said the company’s “role in ending the HIV and hepatitis epidemics is to discover, develop, and ensure access to our life-saving medicines,” adding that it is “committed to advancing health equity and mitigating the racial, geographic and other societal barriers that affect access to care.”
“Gilead has a long history of working closely across sectors and in partnership with the HIV community to help end the epidemic. As a leader in HIV, we will continue to work together with the HIV community and policymakers to overcome the remaining barriers to HIV prevention, care and treatment, and to advance public health initiatives to combat HIV, particularly in regions hardest hit in the United States,” the spokesperson said.
The biotech has provided free medicine to more than 250,000 individuals through one program, the spokesperson said, and the $250 million in charitable contributions and grants it provided in 2021 make it the largest private funder of HIV programs in the U.S. Gilead “also leads numerous community programs to address issues that fuel the HIV epidemic—particularly among key populations and in certain regions of the country,” the spokesperson added.