Activists charged the pharmaceutical company Gilead on Wednesday of seeking unjustified patents for a hepatitis C medication that would make the treatment prohibitively expensive for millions worldwide.
The Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK), a legal advocacy group, announced patent challenges against Gilead in Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Ukraine. Similar filings against the company have already been made in India, Egypt and the European Union.With its attempts to hold exclusive rights to sofosbuvir, which the company has branded Sovaldi, Gilead was “abusing patent laws by claiming existing public knowledge as its own,” Priti Radhakrishnan, a co-founder of I-MAK, said in a conference call. Continue Reading: alj.am/1R5FBTG