THREAD:

Let's breakdown the numbers on Truvada (which is largely used for PrEP and is one of Gilead's flagship drugs) specifically. This is all based off of what I can find publicly, and may not be fully representative of Gilead's costs & profits.

Gilead's CEO claims that they fully developed the 2 drugs that makeup Truvada, and that they spent $1.1 billion on research in doing so. For the purposes of this thread I'm going to take him at his word, though I doubt his word is fully accurate.

From Q3 2016 (the earliest earnings report I can find) to Q1 2020, Truvada alone has made Gilead a little under $11.1 billion.

Gilead has made, again, in my potentially inaccurate estimate, around $10 billion off of Truvada excluding any expenses beyond R&D.

Yet, Gilead is still militant in maintaining their monopoly over Truvada and extorting largely queer, BIPOC, and other marginalized at-risk groups by charging them $1k a month for a drug that allegedly costs around $6/dose to produce.

Gilead must open up the Truvada patent for use by all pharma companies as a public good. They need to stop trying to profit off of marginalized groups not wanting to catch an incurable life-altering and potentially life-threatening illness.