In 2004, Gilead Sciences decided to stop pursuing a new H.I.V. drug. The public explanation was that it wasn’t sufficiently different from an existing treatment to warrant further development.In private, though, something else was at play. Gilead had devised a plan to delay the new drug’s release to maximize profits, even though executives had reason to believe it might turn out to be safer for patients, according to a trove of internal documents made public in litigation against the company.Gilead, one of the world’s largest drugmakers, appeared to be embracing a well-worn industry tactic: gaming the U.S. patent system to protect lucrative monopolies on best-selling drugs.At the time, Gilead already had a pair of blockbuster H.I.V. treatments, both of which were underpinned by a version of a drug called tenofovir. The first of those treatments was set to lose patent protection in 2017, at which point competitors would be free to introduce cheaper alternatives.The promising drug, then in the early stages of testing, was an updated version of tenofovir. Gilead executives knew it had the potential to be less toxic to patients’ kidneys and bones than the earlier iteration, according to in …
