Solvaldi is a medicine prescribed forHepatitis C, which guarantees a 90% chance of recovery, since 9 out of 10 patients are treated at the end of the 3-month course.
The only concern is that such a “miracle” cure costs, to cure each patient, no less than 44,000 euros in the United Kingdom, 49,000 euros in Germany, and 56,000 euros in France.
From exorbitant prices for European health systems, which ended up meeting in Milan on Monday and Tuesday, European health ministers, to try to negotiate the price of the drug with its manufacturer, the Gilead laboratory.
“Make the rich pay to help the poor”
Gilead is justified by claiming to “make the rich pay to help the poor”, since the pharmaceutical company has authorized a generic version of the drug Solvaldi in 91 developing countries. Asked by Les Echos, the director of Gilead France explains that “if the cost was amortized over the entire life span, or over twenty or thirty years, the cost of treatment per year would be of the order of 2,000 euros per year , and the current debate would not take place ”.
In the meantime, the bill will amount to 800 million euros for Health Insurance over the year, to treat 15,000 patients, while its total budget is 24 billion euros. The manufacture of the drug, it costs only 2.5 euros.
Last July, the Health Insurance expected a cost ranging from 15,000 to 25,000 euros per patient for a priest of Solvaldi, but that was without counting the leadership of Gilead, which weighs 160 billion dollars on the stock market …
A competitor drug, another alternative
Rather than launching into a standoff with Gilead laboratories, Gérard Bapt, a Socialist deputy member of the Social Affairs Commission at the National Assembly, suggests marketing the competitor drug from the Abbvie laboratory.
In a letter addressed to the National Medicines Safety Agency, the deputy is surprised by the fact that the combination of two of the active ingredients Viekirax and Exviera d’Abbvie has not yet received marketing authorization. According to the socialist, this drug would be of comparable effectiveness to Sovaldi, with a cure rate of more than 90%. Unfortunately, this treatment has not yet been approved, although Solvaldi has been on the market since January 2014, without competition. Otherwise, Gérard Bapt offers a “compulsory license” for the Solvaldi.
It remains to be seen what angle of action will be favored by European health ministers at the end of this meeting in Milan.
