In a victory for Gilead Sciences, Brazilian antitrust authorities dismissed a complaint filed by several advocacy groups that alleged the company charged “abusive” prices for a hepatitis C treatment.
In their filing, which was made in 2019, the groups argued that “unlawful conduct” carried out by Gilead had hurt the public interest, because its prices led the government to ration the Sovaldi medication. This purportedly contributed to nearly 6,000 deaths from the disease between 2015 and 2017, according to documents filed with the Administrative Council for Economic Defense.
The advocacy groups cited research indicating the company lowered the price of its pill after the Brazilian patent office rejected an application for Sovaldi in 2017. A consortium of public and private companies sought to market a version of the pill, and Gilead subsequently won government contracts by dropping its price. But after securing a patent, the company raised the price more than 1,400%.
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