New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson Calls For Breaking The Patent On HIV Prevention Drugs
New York City Council speaker Corey Johnson has joined the campaign #breakthepatent, which is calling on the federal government to break the patent Gilead Sciences has for the HIV-prevention drug Truvada, also known as PrEP.
Ending the patent would allow other companies to make and market the drug, lowering its price and making it more accessible. Truvada prevents HIV almost 99 percent of the time, but it is much more expensive in the U.S., Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) tells Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson.
“In other countries around the world, Truvada costs about $100 a year for a patient. In the United States, it’s almost $20,000 a year for the same exact medicine,” Johnson says. “And so the case we’re making is that given that American taxpayers and the [National Institutes of Health] have funded this research, the patent should be broken so that more people can get
