Do Canadian Manufacturers Owe A Duty To Develop Safer Alternatives?

Do manufacturers of a regulated product that is approved for sale and appropriately labelled nevertheless owe consumers a duty of care to pursue the earlier development of a safer and economically viable alternative? According to the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Gilead Sciences, Inc. v. I.F., maybe¹.

In Gilead, the defendants, Gilead Sciences Inc. and Gilead Sciences Canada Inc. (collectively, Gilead) are alleged to be liable in negligent design by delaying, for the sake of profit, the development of a medicine they knew to be safer than Gilead’s existing medicine on the market. The plaintiffs’ claim is only brought in negligent design, not in breach of the duty to warn: there is no allegation that Gilead failed to provide adequate warning of the risks associated with their existing medicine. Rather, the claim is that Gilead breached a duty owed to persons taking an approved and appropriately marketed medicine by not advancing the development of an economically feasible