For media inquiries, contact Michael Chancley, Communications and Mobilization Manager at [email protected]. 

NEW YORK, NY – Thursday, AUGUST 6, 2026 – PrEP4All, the national nonprofit fighting to put lifesaving HIV medications into the hands of everyone who needs them, expresses deep disappointment with this week’s California Supreme Court’s decision in the Gilead Tenofovir Cases, arguing that it leaves thousands of people living with HIV without accountability for decisions that prioritized corporate profit over patient safety. 

Over 24,000 people living with HIV sought justice for injuries suffered due to Gilead’s gamesmanship in the development of tenofovir alafenamide (TAF), including an intentional delay in bringing a safer product to market and failing to adjust the dosage of the older medication, TDF, in combination therapies in order to maximize potential safety differences in head-to-head comparator studies. This well documented “patent hop” strategy, whose discovery led to a front-page New York Times story, allowed Gilead to reap billions in profit at the expense of the wellbeing of tens of thousands of people living with HIV. According to one published modeling study commissioned by Gilead, delaying broad access to TAF by approximately nine years may have contributed to roughly 16,000 excess deaths and 150,000 preventable injuries among people living with HIV.

Statement from Peter Staley, Founder Emeritus and Strategic Advisor to PrEP4All: 

“The Court fundamentally misinterpreted the duty of care at the heart of this case. The plaintiffs never argued that Gilead’s approved drug was defective, nor did they ask the courts to second-guess the ordinary scientific, regulatory, or research challenges that every pharmaceutical company faces. Their claim was far narrower: when a company becomes aware that patients are suffering avoidable harm, and it has the ability to reduce that harm, it has a duty to act. The majority treated this case as though it required courts to untangle the complex uncertainties of drug development. It did not. The plaintiffs presented extensive evidence that this delay was not driven by scientific uncertainty or regulatory obstacles, but by a deliberate business decision to maximize profits. By creating a sweeping exception to the duty of care for drug development decisions, the Court effectively held that even a profit-driven delay in bringing a safer medicine to patients cannot be scrutinized by a jury. That is not what California negligence law requires, and it is a troubling departure from the basic principle that companies must exercise reasonable care when they can easily ameliorate the harm caused by their product. It is tragic that the justices did not see it necessary to address a profit-driven delay like this when the company was aware that people living with HIV were suffering some terrible side effects and even dying.”