Universal access to new hepatitis C treatments is set by decree. On June 11, the Official Journal set the profiles of the patients who will be able to benefit from it.
Promise kept, after three weeks of waiting. A decree published in Official newspaper of June 11 sets the new conditions for access to innovative drugs against hepatitis C. This “treatment for all” was announced by Marisol Touraine, Minister of Health, on the occasion of the National Day for the fight against hepatitis viral on May 25. The decree appears just in time: patient associations were starting to lose patience.
6 new patient profiles
The text of the law specifies it: it is indeed a question of widening the “therapeutic indications and conditions of prescription opening right to the assumption of responsibility or the reimbursement” of the new antivirals of direct action (NAAD). These innovative treatments indicated against hepatitis C significantly improve the prognosis for infected patients: 90% of people who take them no longer have a detectable virus in the body.
Sofosbuvir, daclastavir, simeprevir and other drug combinations can now be prescribed to more patients, under the terms of the order. So far, 30,000 patients have benefited from it out of the 500,000 carriers of hepatitis. This number corresponds to the most advanced stages of fibrosis, caused by infection. Thanks to the text, doctors will be able to prescribe these antivirals to patients of less advanced stage (F2), awaiting liver transplantation, hemodialysis or at high risk of transmission of the virus – such as injecting drug users. In total, 6 profiles have been added.
Angry associations
With this decree, the Minister of Health is behind schedule, which she wanted fast. The High Authority of Health (HAS) seized the ball well in flight and delivered a favorable opinion the day after the speech of May 25. But in the meantime, the SOS Hépatites association has expressed its anger. The minister had announced a delay of a few days. “We are more than two weeks away from your declaration and still no decree has appeared in the official journal, denounces President Pascal Mélin in an open letter. This waiting situation continues to generate a particularly worrying parallel drug market. “
It now remains to renegotiate the prices of these drugs, which remain very high. Marisol Touraine announced that it had referred the matter to the Economic Committee for Health Products (CEPS) in this regard. Because the cost of a total cure is astronomical for Social Security: 12 weeks of sofosbuvir require an expenditure of 40,000 euros per patient.
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