ViiV Healthcare, the global specialist HIV company majority-owned by GSK, with Pfizer Inc. and Shionogi Limited as shareholders, has filed patent infringement litigation against Gilead Sciences Inc. over bictegravir in the United States and Canada.
The United States case is filed in the US District Court for the District of Delaware and the patent is US patent No. 8,129,385. The Canadian case is filed in the Canadian Federal Court in Toronto and the patent is Canadian Patent No. 2,606,282.
ViiV Healthcare will seek to prove that Gilead Sciences' triple combination HIV drug containing the HIV integrase inhibitor bictegravir infringes ViiV Healthcare’s patent covering ViiV Healthcare’s dolutegravir and many other compounds that include dolutegravir’s unique chemical scaffold.
Intellectual property protections are critical for the life-sciences industry, allowing companies to make a return on their investment, which in turn enables research-based companies to put new funding into research and development. It is this cycle which continues to result in the development of new and much needed treatments for people living with HIV. ViiV Healthcare will therefore seek financial redress for patent.