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Company: Gilead Sciences
Headquarters: Foster City, USA

Here are the drug patents we want Gilead to put in the pool and why we want them:

Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF)
Brand name: Viread
Tenofovir is a very important drug – the World Health Organization has recommended for some years now that it should replace an earlier antiretroviral, stavudine, for those starting out on antiretroviral therapy because it causes far fewer side effects. These side effects are wide-ranging and can include neuropathy or nerve damage in the hands and feet that make it difficult for people to walk. TDF is also much more robust against the HIV virus which is much less likely to develop resistance to the drug. For all these reasons, patients on TDF are more likely to stick to their course of treatment and stay healthy for longer.  Gilead’s tenofovir is accessible in low-income countries but still costs up to US$1033 per patient per year in some middle-income countries when included in a combination therapy.

Emtricitabine (FTC)
Brand name: Emtriva
FTC is an essential drug for those starting antiretroviral treatment for the first time in combination with other drugs. If emtricitabine is put in the pool, it will be possible to make a lot more combination drugs – easy to take three-in-one drugs – that make it much easier for patients to stick to the complex course of treatment. This drug also helps to keep treatment as simple as possible as it has to be taken only once a day unlike many other antiretrovirals. Right now we need more efforts to make adapted formulations and fixed-dose combinations of this drug for children
 
GS-9350
Currently in clinical trials
This product is still under development by Gilead and belongs to a group of drugs that are essential to boost other antiretrovirals with which they are administered. The only other boosters currently in existence are patented and very expensive. This has put enormous restrictions on the new combinations of drugs that we can put together for patients failing on one set of medications. So putting the patents on this drug in the pool could really open up the development of important new combinations of drugs and extend many lives.

Elvitegravir
Currently in clinical trials
This drug belongs to a really exciting, entirely new class of antiretroviral drugs called integrase inhibitors. Because they work in a totally different way to older HIV medicines, they could really outfox the HIV virus, giving hope of new effective treatment for patients whose earlier drugs are no longer working against the HIV virus.