Gilead to Face HIV Drug Development Delay Negligence Claim (1)

Gilead Sciences Inc. can’t avoid the claims of thousands of plaintiffs who allege they were harmed by early HIV medications because the company delayed the development of safer ones.

The plaintiffs’ negligence theory is viable even though they don’t contend that the drug they used was flawed, the California Court of Appeal said Tuesday.

“No California case appears to have expressly considered” the relationship between “defect” and “negligence,” wrote Associate Justice Jeremy M. Goldman for California’s First District Court of Appeal in the published opinion.

Nevertheless, “we conclude that the legal duty of a manufacturer to exercise reasonable care ...