$1200 pill encapsulates drugmaker’s incessant greed as Gilead Sciences engages in patent manipulation and obscene price hikes
SAN FRANCISCO (October 7, 2023) – AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has launched a new advertisement in its ongoing campaign against Gilead Sciences’ incessant greed. The full-page, full-color newspaper ad debuts this Sunday, October 8th in the San Francisco Chronicle and New Jersey’s Daily Record and will run weekly through at least November. AHF also has sent letters to financial institutions that manage socially responsible investment funds urging them to divest their portfolios of Gilead stock holdings.
“The Bay Area pharmaceutical giant has an appetite for profit that cannot be satisfied, charging prices Americans without health insurance never can hope to afford,” says Michael Weinstein, AHF president and cofounder. “Gilead never has cared about patients, especially low-income, uninsured Americans.”
AHF’s ad highlights several of Gilead’s unsavory business practices, including patent manipulation and out-of-control price hikes. For example, Gilead kept a more effective HIV-medicine with fewer risky side effects off the market to maximize profits of its older version. Gilead also raised the price of its hepatitis C wonder drug, Sovaldi, from an already absurd $1000 per pill to $1200 and doubled the price it charges safety net providers for HIV prevention drug Descovy in just two years.