AHF slams Gilead's campaign for PrEP, skirting FDA oversight

The USA-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is speaking out about the underhanded influence of biotech giant Gilead Sciences’ (Nasdaq: GILD) money in pushing the use of its AIDS treatment, Truvada (emtricitabine and tenofovir), for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention.

It says that Gilead, which on more than one occasion has said that it “…does not view PrEP as a commercial opportunity and is not conducting marketing activities around Truvada as PrEP,” is directly funding HIV/AIDS and community groups nationwide with ‘Gilead PrEP Grants.’ AHF believes the community grants and other such funding awarded by Gilead - which some groups have used to run advertising of their own promoting PrEP use - constitute a stealth marketing campaign that allows Gilead to bypass Food and Drug Administration oversight of its marketing statements.

Additional PrEP grants