Three PROTESTS Set for Thurs., Dec 1st in Washington, DC, Miami and San Diego at Gilead Offices
Advocates target Gilead’s insatiable greed and its drug pricing and policies, including illegal restrictions the drug company places for certain pharmacies on access to 340B drug pricing for Gilead’s branded hepatitis C treatments
WASHINGTON (November 29, 2022) On World AIDS Day, Thursday, December 1st, advocates and mobilizers affiliated with AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), will host a series of three protests across the U.S. targeting drug maker Gilead Sciences over the Bay Area company’s avarice in its drug pricing and policies. The nationwide protests will take place the same morning on Thursday, December 1st in Washington, DC (9:00 a.m. EST), Miami, Florida (11:30 a.m. EST), and in San Diego/Oceanside, California (10:30 a.m. PST)
WHAT: World AIDS Day drug company PROTESTS target Gilead Sciences’ Greed
WHEN: Thursday, December 1, 2022
9:00 a.m. EST
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Gilead Sciences, 300 New Jersey Ave, NW, Suite 650, Washington, D.C. 20001
AHF DC Media Contacts:
Denys Nazarov, +1.323.219.1091 cell [email protected]
Lauren Hogan, +1.310.940.0802 cell [email protected]
11:30 a.m. EST
MIAMI, FL
Gilead Sciences, 5200 Blue Lagoon Drive, Suite 450, Miami, FL 33126
AHF MIA Media Contact: Imara Canady, +1.770.940.6555 cell [email protected]
10:30 a.m. PST
OCEANSIDE, CA
Gilead Sciences, 4010 Ocean Ranch Blvd., Oceanside, CA 92056
AHF CA Media Contact: Ged Kenslea, +1.323.791.5526 cell [email protected]
WHO: 50 -100 advocates at each location with signs reading “Stop Being Greedy” and, playing off the company’s logo with a few red letters scrawled over Gilead’s logo, signs made to read “Greed” and “Greediad.”
Advocates are protesting Gilead over its profound and tone-deaf greed with pricing and policies, particularly illegal restrictions the company placed earlier this year on access to 340B drug pricing for its branded hepatitis C treatments for certain pharmacies. Gilead is now one of over 15 major drug companies that have illegally placed such restrictions on its drugs
According to a 340B Report article from March, Gilead became the 15th drug manufacturer to place unlawful restrictions on 340B contract pharmacy programs. Lawyers for the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) in both the Biden and Trump administrations have said these restrictions are clearly illegal, yet drug companies like Gilead continue to forge ahead with the lawbreaking in search of even greater profits.
Moreover, according to the 340B Report, Gilead is now refusing to offer the 340B discount price for HIV drugs to providers who use contract pharmacies. Earlier this year, Gilead suddenly, dramatically increased—and in some instances, doubled—the price that safety net providers pay for its medication, Descovy – a drug needed for both HIV treatment and HIV prevention.
Protesters at all three locations—Washington, DC, Miami and Oceanside, CA—will have repurposed Gilead’s logo on signs that instead now spell out “Greed.” They’ll also sport signs reading “Stop Being Greedy.” The protests will take place the same day, with the East Coast events kicking off at 9:30 a.m. EST in Washington, D.C. and 11:30 a.m. EST in Miami while the California protest will start at 10:30 a.m. PST. Some protests will feature theatrical elements and protesters in costume—some dressed as a $1 million dollar bill, with pigs’ heads and snouts, and dressed as burglars with money bags slung over their shoulders.
AHF’s World AIDS Day Gilead protests follow a weeklong, twice-daily series of protests in late October targeting Gilead, maker of most of the key and most effective HIV medications and Hepatitis C drugs, at its headquarters in Foster City, CA. AHF also previously protested Gilead’s greed and actions on four separate occasions during the spring and summer at the Bay Area drug maker’s headquarters.
The 340B drug pricing program is administered by the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA). It has helped provide low-cost medications and better health outcomes for millions of Americans through the nonprofit clinics and hospitals that serve them. Safety net providers like Ryan White providers, who serve patients living with HIV, have the right under the 340B statute to purchase drugs at a discounted price. In March, Gilead put profits before patients by unilaterally imposing unlawful conditions on when and how it will give discounts for certain Hepatitis C drugs
“Gilead continues to demonstrate insatiable greed and avarice, showing it really cares FAR more about money than saving people’s lives. On World AIDS Day, we vow to keep holding Gilead and CEO Daniel O’Day accountable, whenever and wherever we can,” said AHF President Michael Weinstein. “Drug company profiteering and the abuse of lifesaving programs like 340B and community pharmacies nationwide by Gilead and others simply must stop!”
AHF mobilizers and advocates will be also deploying social media in real time at many of these Gilead protests and will be using hashtags: #PeopleBeforeProfit – #GreedyGilead
