Gilead Sciences Inc. announced that almost 100,000 bottles of its HIV medications had been faked or tampered with over the past two years.
According to a lawsuit unsealed by a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York January 19 — but which had been filed over the summer — Gilead, which is based in Foster City, first became aware of counterfeit versions of its drugs Biktarvy and Descovy in August 2020.
At that time, a customer of a pharmacy in Brawley, California (Imperial County) turned in a bottle that was purported to be Biktarvy but was, in fact, Tylenol, according to the pharmacist, who was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal.
Gilead made an announcement in August letting the public know that it had "become aware of tampered and counterfeit versions" of Biktarvy and Descovy.