Gaj wrote: Hmm. Not sure that there have been any licensing deals with generics manufacturers that U.S. Vets admin can take advantage of? And responsive wouldn't be the word I would apply to Gilead licensing deals in countries that did not recognise the patent. Perhaps reactive is a more appropriate description?
That's a good point and relates to the core of the problem which is the way the US medical system allows profiteers, including Gilead, to operate. But Gilead is working rationally within the boundaries of a broken system. Fortunately this logic, reactive or not, has allowed India to manufacture generics under an agreement with them, and we are the beneficiaries of that logic.
I completely agree that they are greedy, but they are doing nothing illegal, and in this neoliberal world that we live in, this could be seen as doing nothing immoral.
While not sure what the PBS agreement has to do with the above discussion, we can go there if you like. I'm not privy to what the correct costs are so will accepts yours for now but as you more correctly point out further down your post the Australian government isn't "footing the bill". The Australian taxpayer is though, and as one I'm not sure I understand why we have to pay the price of $30k per Tx for something that the manufacturer can make for several hundred bucks (probably less) and generics manufacturers could supply for around 5-7% of Gilead's price even after paying a 7% licensing fee?
I'm not sure of the details, either, but why was there no outrage over interferon costing $15,000 per treatment?
And I don't see anything extraordinary in a publicly funded universal health care system such as Medicare paying for healthcare for all Australians, although I guess the profits that Gilead is still making on the deal would qualify for that word!
For one, it's incredibly expensive to treat everyone, so the extraordinary thing for me is that they managed to get this deal happening at all, even though the price is still high for the taxpayer. The really strange thing is that they announced that there would be no triaging according to condition. That is, no sending healthy people to the back of the queue.I'd be very surprised if this was not just empty words as there is a lot of money involved.
G4, F4, cirrhosis.
Thank you to Gilead, Michael Sofia, and the terrific folk at FixHepC for making this adventure possible.
YEAR..... ALT..... AST..... GGT... FERRITIN........................................
2009....... 210..... 215..... 953..... 1400........... (Bad health, stupidity)
2015....... 60....... 45....... 150..... 360............. (Improved diet and health, FixHepC treatment)
2016....... 20....... 24....... 25....... 156............. (SVR 12)