This is a first, an NGO is filing a complaint against a pharmaceutical laboratory, to dispute the price of a drug. On Tuesday February 10, Doctors of the World embarked on a long-term legal battle to try to eventually allow the production of cheap generic versions of the molecule sofosbuvir, a new generation treatment against hepatitis C, on the market. since the end of 2013. The NGO denounces an “exorbitant” price.
France can however consider itself lucky, it is the European country where sofosbuvir, sold under the name of Sovaldi, is the cheapest. For a standard treatment of 24 weeks, it only costs health insurance… 41,000 euros! By way of comparison, Germany pays €8,000 more; in the United States, the treatment amounts to 74,000 €, recalls the daily The cross.
After tough negotiations last fall with the manufacturer of the drug, the American laboratory Gilead, the Ministry of Health was also pleased to have reached such a “low” price. It is true that until then, the Sovaldi cost €56,000 for 12 weeks of treatment.
Through its European legal action, Médecins du Monde aims above all to “improve patient access to medicine”. To limit costs, Sovaldi is now reserved for patients whose liver infection is already at an advanced stage. According to The cross, 15,000 people could thus receive the treatment in 2015. “But it is a form of rationing linked to this exorbitant price. According to experts, sofosbuvir should be offered to all patients in a situation of vulnerability to infection, i.e. around 150,000 people”, denounces Jean-François Corty, director of operations France of MDM in the columns of The cross. At the current price, treating all patients would cost more than 5 billion euros, or a fifth of the health insurance budget…
Even more than the cost of Sovaldi, it is the argument put forward by Gilead to justify it that calls into question MDM. According to the laboratory, 90% of patients treated with Sovaldi will be cured, will not develop complications and therefore will no longer cost health insurance anything.
An argument that is increasingly put forward by laboratories, and that they would like to see taken into account during drug price negotiations. At a time when the Economic Committee for Health Products is preparing to negotiate the new framework agreement with the drug industries, the “crusade” started by MDM could have resonance beyond the specific case of hepatitis C.
