New Hep C drug Sovaldi comes with $1000 price tag

March 26, 2014 Posted by Contributor

Now you have to pay $1000 to buy one tablet of a new Hepatitis C drug named Sovaldi.

According to the manufacturer Gilead Sciences, it has put the price tag of its new Hepatitis C drug $1000, which means the number of pills required for a full course of treatment will set you back $84,000.

Gilead Sciences boasts that its new drug Sovaldi is going to defeat the Hep C as clinical trial shows success rates of over 90 percent with less side-effects.

Three Democratic lawmakers on the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Reps. Henry Waxman of California, Frank Pollone of New Jersey, and Diana DeGette of Colorado have sent a letter to Gilead Sciences asking for an explanation over the price tag.

According to the lawmakers, even if the drug has high success rates, it will not cater the mass due to its eye-popping price tag. This high is surely going to hit the low and middle income group, they added.

Christopher Raymond, a R.W. Baird biotech analyst, says, “It makes an easy target, certainly for politicians or for folks, but I think the more important constituency here are our payers.’

According to Raymond, most biotech companies don’t have to deal with such issues anywhere else as they have a different health care system in place.

Citing example of Europe, he says they make great use of the single-payer systems. The system allows the government to take care of any health-care related costs, he says.

The company has proposed a multi-tiered pricing system for its new drug. The pricing system will be based on the per capita gross income of the country in which it’s sold.

For example, a course of Sovaldi will cost $66,000 in Germany while the United Kingdom will have to pay $57,000 for the drug.

Egypt, which has the world’s highest rates of Hep-C infection, will have the drugs at the lowest rate-i.e. just $900.

A World Health Organization (WHO) reports shows, an estimated 150 million people chronically suffer from Hep C worldwide. About three million Americans are infected with the disease.

Laurie

That is so ridiculous to price this drug out of reach of so many people that would benefit from it. Corporate greed is what is going to be the death of so many people.
- hooligan6a
  
  How much of your money did you invest in the development of this drug?
  - npco543
    
    First of all, we’ve all invested quite a lot in the development of this drug through the taxes we pay to make up for the exploitation of every conceivable tax loophole corporations like Gilead use to avoid paying their fair share.
    
    Second, a better question would be how much Gilead plans to charge for the drug OUTSIDE the US. Very often it’s pennies compared to what they charge INSIDE the US.
    
    But don’t let me stop you from supporting positions directly opposed to your own interests (unless you work for Gilead).
    - hooligan6a
      
      Wrong! It is clear that you are a liberal and want others to pay your way in life. Investers put up the money and you want to reap the benefits.
      - npco543
        
        And you’re the stereotypical ignorant as shit conservative.
        
        Pay my way in life? In my 40 years on this planet, I’ve never received a single cent of unemployment or government assistance of any kind. I paid for my own higher education and I employ myself. Everything I purchase beyond my house, I purchase with cash. I have no credit cards and no debt beyond said mortgage.
        
        Who, exactly, is paying my way in life? I am you moron.
        
        What I’m against is corporations not contributing to the functioning of our country through the payment of taxes at the same time they extort money from US citizens to the tune of $1000 per pill for the exact same medication they offer elsewhere in the world for a few 10’s of dollars.
        
        It’s the pathetic ignorance of people like you that has allowed it to happen, which has resulted in the decimation of a strong middle class, which has incalculably weekend us as a country.
        
        But because I don’t give a rat’s backside if two gay people I’ve never met get married, I’m a liberal and I’m wrong about everything.
        
        Go to hell asshole.
      - hooligan6a
        
        My my, You are a typical liberal, that can not discuss an issue without resorting to name calling. It just proves how unintelligent your are. By the way, what has guy marriage have to do with this?
      - npco543
        
        And you’re the typical conservative who won’t or can’t address any of the issues raised and instead simply resorts to calling someone a liberal, as if that alone conclusively disproves any said issues.
        
        And gay marriage is the current poster child issue between liberals and conservatives. So when you simply label me as a liberal instead of addressing any points, it’s like saying “you support gar marriage so you’re wrong on everything”.
        
        As for unintelligent, I’ve now raised numerous points and you’ve contributed zero the the conversation outside “you’re a liberal”. Yea, and I’m the unintelligent one…
        
        Again… asshole. And yes, I have a foul mouth, but it’s because we’re all being negatively effected by the ignorance of people like you. At some point, the gloves have to come off and you need to call a spade a spade.
  - Ivan Polo
    
    Fuck you! That is a very evil and stupid question !!
- hmna
  
  What’s the cost of this drug compared to the cost of a liver transplant? Liver destruction often results from Hep C.
  - StanfordLongevity
    
    So you are ok with the pricing? First of all you have no idea what you are talking about. Millions of Hep C patients live well into their 80s, with no transplant. Second, according to your warped rationalisation we should price antibiotics at thousands of $$ per injection, removal of a appendix at around $1million, C-Sections at at least $500K, and poison antidotes at no less than $2million, etc.
William Graham

Competitors on the horizon I hope?
npco543

“…have sent a letter to Gilead Sciences asking for an explanation over the price tag.”

What a waste of time. The reply these congress men and women will receive will surly be along these lines: “We funded your campaign so you work for us. When you retire from politics, we’ll give you a seat on our board and a million dollar a year salary for your silence, so sit your arses down and shut up.”

It’s called Crony Capitalism, and the United States is a shining example.
hambdiscus

Another example of how badly the US healthcare system is broken. The ACA is nothing more than a poorly-designed bandaid as it cannot and will not reign in the greed of the pharmas.

Add this new drug to the $90,000 prostate cancer drug as well as several other just announced treatments and drugs that have cure costs exceeding $100,000.

As to our legislator’s sending letters demanding an explanation, that is simply grandstanding on their part and will accomplish nothing.

Gilead Sciences should advertise the drug thusly:

“If you are rich and have hepatitis C, call us. We can help. If you are poor, we will call you–not”
- hooligan6a
  
  Don’t get your knickers all in a twist. Obuma is going to pay for all your drugs, isn’t he?
J. Johnson

For those folks who acquired Hep C because of the actions of some see else (ie transfusions) government should subsidize . For intravenous drug users or others whose bad behavior resulted in Hep C, $84,000 + tax seems appropriate along with delayed availability.
Facts are ,however, we will pay twice for those who shot up drugs and got Hep C; once while they stole something every day to support their habits and again when we subsidize their drug therapy to cure them.
- hooligan6a
  
  Very good JJ.
Ben Ricks

You just have to love the true “Free” market economy we live in…:)
- hooligan6a
  
  Isn’t Obuma going to get your drugs for you for free? Is that the free market you want?
  - Ben Ricks
    
    I personal don’t require anything for free, but thanks. For whatever reason it seems like you are riding Obama’s D*&% harder than possibly his wife, why is that?
Dan P

Greed is bad, yes. Would this drug have ever been developed if people didn’t think they could make a boat load off of it? Why does it cost more in the USA, simple , we can afford to pay it. as much as it hurts to pay that amount, we will pay it.
It would be nice if we had teams of doctors and chemists and researchers working for pennies, funded by billions in donations that would develop and giveaway these drugs. But that is not the way human nature works.
StanfordLongevity

This is the definition of evil. Pharmas have never been about the patient, but this marks a new low in ethics, and morality. Only a corrupt congressman or woman could find any justification for this pricing.
- hooligan6a
  
  Come on! There is no such thing as a corrupt congresswoman, is there?
w1z11

Can anybody say “GREED”? Pretty obvious, and pretty sad, to exploit people this way. Sad, too, that some of our ‘leaders’ might be part of the problem, rather than the solution.

Some of these “shenanigans” (like this) are becoming more frequent, and much more “open” it seems…almost as though those involved are ‘thumbing their noses’ at any of us “little-folks” who might have the audacity to object to such things, y’know? I’m just sayin’…
- hooligan6a
  
  If you don’t want to pay $1000 per pill, go develop your own drugs.
  - w1z11
    
    Heh…cute…but they won’t even LET me do that if I COULD, y’know?
DaveAlaska

There are plenty of lower-cost alternative drugs that have a greater possibility of side effects. Developing this drug was an enormous gamble and an enormous expense. Since the patent rights on drugs run out so quickly, in a few years companies who invested and risked and created nothing of human value will be profiting from Gilead’s successful gambit.
- Heidi
  
  That’s true Dave. Even today I have read an article that a new drug is promising 95% success rate. https://www.utahpeoplespost.com/2014/04/new-drug-boasts-to-cure-hepatitis-c-with-95-percent-success-rate/ It’s all pharma gamble just to make some $$$$