On Friday, the United States Food and Drug Authority gave its approval to pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc. to begin market sales for a once-a-day hepatitis-C drug that has promised to provide a cure for most hepatitis-C patients while also eliminating the need for other medicines. However, the high price of the drug is still considered as a controversial issue that could spark tensions between the manufacturers and health insurance companies.
The drug called Harvoni is promoted as an improvement of the previously released Sovaldi, which also became a source of controversy after its launch last year because of its exorbitant costs. Unlike Harvoni, however, Sovaldi had to be used in conjunction with other hepatitis drugs, and its $84,000 price tag added to the overall cost of medication. Analysts roughly calculated that it amassed about $9 billion in sales during the first 3 quarters of this year. Now, the manufacturers of Harvoni have essentially combined Sovaldi with another component from the original treatment regimen into a single pill that can be taken once a day by most patients so they can be cured of hepatitis C. The typical cost for a 12-week course of treatment for Harvoni is $94,500.
More than 3 million Americans are affected with hepatitis C, but it's treatment has been a constant source of tension between pharmaceutical companies and health insurance agencies because of the continuing increase in the price of hepatitis C drugs. This dilemma has raised questions about drug companies touting the life saving merits of these drugs, but they argue that their products are saving the patients money over the long term since they will no longer have the need for costly liver transplants.
Despite the cost, however, doctors and hepatitis C patients have been waiting in anticipation of Harvoni because of the advantage of having to do away with extra injections that were previously required with Sovaldi. This new drug also performed better in clinical trials, showing promising results in a slightly higher number of patients. Dr. Donald Jensen, the director of the University of Chicago Center for Liver Diseases, admitted that he had been delaying treatment for some of his patients because he was waiting on the approval for the new drug. "To get an even better cure rate without the injections and with therapy as short as 8 to 12 weeks is clearly revolutionary," he said.