Hepatitis C is a seemingly invisible epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 3.2 million people are infected with the hepatitis C virus in the United States, with some 170 million infected worldwide. About 75-80 percent of these people will develop chronic infection leading to cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer.
Until recently, the main treatment for hep C was Interferon or a liver transplant. The goal was to get rid of the virus but Interferon doesn’t work for some viral subtypes, the treatment regimes lasted 6 months to a year and were not 100% effective in eradicating the virus. Even when it works, some people are unable to tolerate the side effects.
Enter Gilead Sciences with a newly FDA-approved hep C drug, Sovaldi, which, when taken in combination with other older medications, can eradicate the virus in only 12 weeks, works on a previously resistant viral subtype and appears to be more effective overall. What’s not to like?
For one thing, the price-tag.
Sovaldi costs $1,000 per pill.
While I have nothing but respect for researchers working to come up with a more effective treatment for this or any disease, the drug companies are not in this for your health; they are in it for their own financial health. Sovaldi had the “best drug launch ever” with $3.2 billion in sales in its first quarter.
Meanwhile, on June 9 pharmaceutical giant Merck announced it was buying Idenix, a company that makes hep C drugs, for $3.85 billion in cash, or $24.50 a share.
“Let’s recognize that there are on the order of 170 million people who have hepatitis C infection,” says Roger Perlmutter, who heads Merck’s research and development operations. ”You’re not going to treat a substantial fraction of the world’s infections in a few years. It’s just impossible.” (Forbes.com)
You can practically hear him salivating over the vast market for hepatitis C medications that is out there.
Let’s not forget that people are dying of hepatitis C right now. I lost a friend last year. Will passed away, a good union man who left behind a teenage daughter. He had tried to take Interferon but couldn’t stand the psychiatric side effects, to which he at least partially attributed the break up of his marriage. Untreated, his disease continued to get worse until he died.
Hepatitis C facts
Many of the millions with this infection are members of the Baby Boom generation. Because HCV is spread primarily through contact with the blood of an infected person, many people were exposed in the 1970s or 1980s through drug use, including by sharing straws while snorting cocaine or other drugs. The majority of infected people do not know they are infected because they do not seem to be sick.
However, the virus is continuing to grow in their bodies, and can lead to fatal health problems.
That is why more effective medications that take less time to work are going to be a game changer for the hep C community—if people can afford them.
Apologists for capitalism would argue that it’s a good thing that Merck is now getting into the market to compete with Gilead—maybe through the magic of the market place they will come up with an even better drug, and/or compete with Gilead by lowering prices. Of course, the prices may eventually go down, but in the meantime, there are sick people for whom the clock is ticking. If they aren’t treated in a timely fashion, they will die of cirrhosis or liver cancer.
In any case, a hep C drug price war is unlikely, according to Forbes writer Matthew Harper:
AbbVie’s [another drug company making hep C medications] chief executive has already made comments that were interpreted by reporters as meaning that he will not compete with Gilead on price. But the prospect of a hep C price war got even dimmer yesterday when Merck bought Idenix. Merck’s head of R&D, Roger Perlmutter, was very clear about what he’s planning: a new combo pill that will cure hepatitis C even more quickly than the Sovaldi-containing combo pill Gilead will introduce later this year. Does anyone think Merck will introduce a drug with an advantage, and than price it at significantly less than Sovaldi?
This highlights the immorality, not the magic, of the marketplace.
