Hepatitis C: a way to facilitate access to an expensive drug

While the Social Security budget is due to be voted on next week, Health Minister Marisol Touraine and her colleague Budget Secretary Christian Eckert are trying to lower the price of a particularly expensive drug: Sovaldi (from the laboratory American Gilead) is a near-miracle treatment that treats 90% of patients with hepatitis C without causing the side effects of competitors (depression, personality disorders) and without pain. The problem is its cost: 56,000 euros every 3 months.

These prices are not uncommon for orphan diseases. These are pathologies that affect few people and for which the drugs developed have required long and important research work.
But for hepatitis C, the equation is different: 200,000 people in France are affected. According to government calculations (only the most affected patients, those suffering from level 3 and 4 cirrhosis, benefit from Solvadi), Gilead’s drug should cost Social Security between 800 million and 1 billion euros in 2015. at the same price, or 4% of the total drug budget!

why actor reported, a few weeks ago, negotiations underway between the American pharmaceutical company and the health authorities to lower the price of the drug. According to Echoes, the government could also set up an unprecedented mechanism: “It will revive an article of the Social Security code which dates from 1999, […] the LR-138-10 […] which authorizes the State to take part of the French turnover of pharmaceutical laboratories, when they have exceeded the maximum spending limit authorized by law (Ondam), ”explains the daily.

The government could thus choose to apply this law for drugs treating hepatitis C. The proceeds of the tax should be allocated to Social Security. The Echoes explain that this taxation would put an end to the rationing of care, by opening access to Sovaldi to all. The mechanism is expected to be unveiled on Monday as part of the Social Security financing bill.