Patients claim that HIV drugs including the Atripla HIV drug can cause bone and kidney damage. According to some patients, drug companies did not warn patients of these possible side effects, putting patients at risk in the interest of increasing their profits.

Though HIV is a chronic condition, some drugs can be used to manage the condition. Many drugs can be used to extend patients’ life and increase their quality of life. One common type of drugs used to treat HIV are called tenofovir disoproxil fumarate drugs. One drug in this class of drugs is the Atripla HIV drug.

If you took the Atripla HIV drug and developed kidney and bone problems, you may have a legal claim. Patients have already filed lawsuits attempting to hold drug companies accountable for unnecessarily exposing people to dangerous and chronic side effects.

In two separate legal actions filed in the Superior Court of the State of California, patients claim that HIV drug causes kidney and bone damage.

Gilead is a drug company that makes tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) drugs. According to both lawsuits, the drug company knew that TDF drugs could cause bone and kidney damage, but intentionally suppressed that information.

Allegedly, a newer version the drug, known as TAF, has fewer negative side effects associated with it, but Gilead allegedly suppressed it from the market because the company wanted to extend the patent life of TDF drugs. Allegedly, this was done in an attempt to extend the sales and the profits that could be gained for the drug.

According to patients, Gilead wrongfully gained $18 billion in profits from TDF drugs in 2015. The patients claim that as early as 2001, the drug company was aware that Atripla HIV and other drugs were “highly toxic in the doses prescribed and risked permanent and possibly fatal damage to the kidney and bones.”

Patients claimed that this information was revealed in Gilead’s own research into the effects of the drugs.

Additionally, the FDA issued two communications in 2002 to Gilead over their marketing of TDF drugs like Atripla HIV.

According to one personal injury lawsuit, the FDA told Gilead that its marketing may have presented “false and misleading information regarding TDF’s side effects,” because the marketing agents had allegedly claimed that TDF drugs had “no toxicities” and were “benign.”

Nonetheless, patients claim Gilead reportedly continued selling the drugs for many years, despite the fact that their own research allegedly suggested that the drugs were harmful and the fact the FDA allegedly twice warned them against falsely marketing the drugs as safe and effective.

Additionally, the Atripla HIV drugs personal injury lawsuit notes that in 2004, two years after the FDA warnings, Gilead CEO John C. Martin announced that Gilead would be discontinuing the development of TAF, the allegedly safer, newer alternative to TDF drugs like the Atripla HIV drug.

Patients claim that the drug company did not continue its research into TAF drugs for over a decade, in 2014, when the patents for TDF drugs were running out.