Gilead and Teva have chalked up an important legal victory in a California court, defeating allegations that they created an anticompetitive scheme to delay generic competition to lucrative HIV treatments.
By winning over the jury, the companies have side-stepped a request to pay $3.6 billion in damages sought by drug purchasers in their 2019 lawsuit crying foul on a 2014 patent settlement.
The lawsuit claimed Gilead paid Teva a $1 billion “reverse payment” to hold off on generic versions of Gilead’s Truvada. This deal allowed Gilead to monopolize the market and charge higher prices, the plaintiffs said.
In a statement, Gilead said the jury verdict confirms that the patent settlement was not a reverse payment and instead “promoted competition,” allowing generic options to launch before Gilead’s final patents expired.
The case was split into two parts. Gilead and Teva settled with other plaintiff groups involved in the litigation including CVS Pharmacy, Rite Aid and Walgreens in May.
Bristol Myers Squibb was previously involved in the case, but the company escaped the litigation with a $11 million settlement last April. Johnson & Johnson is involved in a separate category of claims surrounding its own HIV combination drugs.
Teva’s Truvada generic launched in 2020, leading Gilead to aggressively switch patients from Truvada to its follow-up med Descovy. That drug is still delivering solid sales gains and posted a 10% year-over-year revenue jump in 2022.
This antitrust trial wasn't Gilead’s only Truvada legal battle from recent years. The company and U.S. government have been sparring over patent rights on the med for years, and the company scored a major trial win in that case back in May.