Truvada Lawsuits

As of October 2024, lawyers continue to accept potential Truvada lawsuits. This litigation also includes Viread, Atripla, Complera and Stribild lawsuits because all these drugs contain tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), an ingredient that plaintiffs argue is toxic to the bones and kidneys.

We’ve spoken to lawyers familiar with the litigation and analyzed court documents and news publications to bring you the following updates.

According to Gilead’s March 2024 quarterly report, the first bellwether test trials were scheduled in California state and federal courts for October 2022 but have since been stayed. Many of the cases are pending in California, but the company faces lawsuits that involve thousands of plaintiffs in multiple states.

You may qualify to file a Truvada or TDF lawsuit if you took Truvada or another TDF medication manufactured by Gilead and suffered bone loss or kidney damage.
Truvada lawsuits claim that Gilead knew or should have known that Truvada and its active ingredient TDF were “highly toxic in the doses prescribed and risked permanent and possibly fatal damage to the kidneys and bones.”

However, instead of conducting further studies and informing the public, the drugmaker ignored and misrepresented the risks, according to the combined lawsuit of Michael Lujano and Jonathan C. Gary. Gilead hid the risks from doctors and patients so it could “continue to raise its market share with TDF.”

“Gilead has shown a disregard for its patients’ health in order to reap outsized profits from its TDF medications,” Lujano told the Associated Press.

Over the years, several studies have linked TDF to side effects that include kidney and bone problems.

Kidney Problems

The first documented instance of kidney toxicity in relation to TDF occurred in the United States the same year the drug hit the market in 2001, according to Willem D.F. Venter and the coauthors of a 2018 study in Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine.

The patient suffered acute kidney injury, nephrogenic diabetes insipidus and Fanconi syndrome, a disorder where certain substances normally absorbed into the blood are excreted in urine instead.

“Since then, many studies have described the nephrotoxic potential of the drug,” the authors wrote.

Bone Density Loss

A 2018 study by Grace A. McComsey and colleagues published in AIDS found loss of bone mineral density “in patients with HIV is associated with many contributing factors including antiretroviral therapy (ART), particularly regimens including tenofovir disoproxil fumarate.”

Researchers found switching to a combination of two other antiretroviral drugs, dolutegravir and rilpivirine, continued to suppress the virus while improving bone mineral density.

People filed the first individual Truvada injury lawsuits in California in May 2018, and others followed. The common assertion in these claims is that Gilead failed to warn about the drug’s side effects and purposely withheld the safer drug tenofovir alafenamide (TAF), now marketed as Descovy, from the market to make more money.

Gilead’s sales reps and CEO claimed TDF was “a ‘miracle drug,’ had ‘no toxicities,’ was ‘benign,’ and ‘extremely safe’,” according to lawsuits. However, studies as far back as 1997 showed it had significant bone and kidney toxicity.

AIDS Health Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, helped file a class action lawsuit against Gilead on behalf of Devin Martinez, Ricardo Wohler and others who purchased Truvada and other TDF drugs in May 2018.

This California action is separate from the individual injury lawsuits filed by people who claim kidney or bone injuries from TDF, but it deals with similar issues.

According to the complaint, Gilead misrepresented TDF’s safety profile as early as 2001. The FDA reprimanded Gilead in 2002 and 2003 for claiming the drug had no toxicities and would not cause bone or kidney damage, but the company continued to downplay the risks.

Gilead’s ‘Bald-Faced Greed and Disregard for Patient Safety’

Before the class action, AHF had sued Gilead in April 2016. The foundation accused the company of manipulating the patent system by withholding TAF from patients.

AHF said in a press release that media coverage on the topic had “exposed Gilead’s bald-faced greed and disregard for patient safety.”

The lawsuit alleged that as early as 2002, Gilead was paying doctors to research TAF in patients around the country while it was making profits on TDF. The company quietly applied for patents on TAF but kept its research secret.

In response to the allegations, Gilead’s lawyers denied lawsuit claims and said the company “had no duty to develop, test, seek approval of, or launch its new product on any particular timetable,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

“The delay in conducting clinical trials deprived those suffering from HIV of TAF for more than a decade,” the class action lawsuit said. “It is possible that HIV patients suffered from 10 years of additional accumulated kidney and bone toxicity using TDF while TAF stayed on the shelf.”