An HIV treatment cost taxpayers millions. The government patented it. But a pharma giant is making billions.

Antiretroviral pills Truvada sit on a tray at Jack’s Drug Store on Nov. 23, 2010, in San Anselmo, Calif. By Christopher Rowland Christopher Rowland Business reporter focused on the health-care economy's effects on patient health, costs, and privacy Email Bio Follow March 26 at 7:26 PM Thomas Folks spent years in his U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab developing a treatment to block deadly HIV in monkeys.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, has patented more than 2,500 inventions created with taxpayer dollars since 1976, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Activists want the government to take a more aggressive stance against Gilead. Their complaints are part of a broader wave of anger over drug companies reaping hefty financial rewards by capitalizing on taxpayer-funded research.

But that stance increasingly is challenged by political anger over high drug prices. Consumer advocates and members of Congress have stepped up demands that the government exercise its rights under existing law to license generic competition or imports during shortages or unwarranted price spikes; several bills would enhance such “compulsory licensing’’ provisions.

President Trump set a goal in his State of the Union speech last month of eradicating HIV/AIDS by 2030; to get close to that goal, specialists say, Truvada for PrEP needs to be far more widespread. Trump’s budget plan unveiled this month would add $291 million to combat the disease. In addition to $50 million in government money, $17 million for the study came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grant said.

Robert Rowland drove nearly three hours to get Truvada for PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, during an appointment at the Open Arms Healthcare Center in Jackson, Miss. Federal officials estimated in 2016 that less than 10 percent of the 1.1 million people who should be on PrEP treatment were receiving the drug. Gilead says that has now improved to about 20 percent.

Stephan68205581 Stay clear of this person she his a scammer BE WARNED

Socialize the cost, privatize the product. Classic capitalist slight of hand

Which is why capitalism sucks

Thanks Obamacare! Take care of this backward healthcare train wreck please, realDonaldTrump

elielcruz FeeltheBern

I'd be on PrEP if I could afford it...

Socialism for corporations.....the Republican/centrist way

Suprise, suprise!

in 1980's there were about 20,000 aids cases. in 2017 there are over 1,200,000 cases of aids. personally I prefer 'quarantine' over 'pc'. GOOD: If in 1988 a quarantine implemented then may result in 50,000 aids cases now. BAD: if one uses 'pc', USA gets 1,200,000 aids.

In related news, these new HIV drugs make the virus 'undetectable' and end up materially mitigating the resultant, redistributed Health Care COSTS to the taxpayers without such innovations.

Greed rules everything around me.

Is time for a cure.

Or people could just behave and not get that disease.

The greed of big pharma is not a shock anymore. You just need to look at the OpioidEpidemic as another example. This has been going on for a long time and I hope soon Americans fight back on the corruption.

Figures, why isn't the Republicans looking into this!!!

The Government should give incentives for drugs companies to part with their drugs for a reasonable price. Maybe the government could fund the research into the drugs so the companies don't have to re-coup the costs from their future customers.

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