James-Freeman-facebook wrote: The Turnbull government will spend more than $1 billion to make breakthrough hepatitis C cures available to all as part of an ambitious new plan to eradicate the deadly disease within a generation.
www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/politica...20151219-glrib0.html
This is great news for Australians... And crucially, the article states:
"The move will make Australia one of the first countries in the world to publicly subsidise the drugs for their entire population, no matter what a patient's condition is or how they contracted the disease."
A quick calculation - let's suppose the govt will pay Gilead 50 000 per patient: 230 000 * 50 000 = 11 500 000 000 (11.5 BIllion). Therefore, assuming a spend of 1 Billion per year, it will take 11.5 years.
Of course, not all of this money goes to Gilead, so add a few more years. And of course prices will come down so subtract a few years (and/or dollars).
Conclusion?
1. The Australian Govt will finally cover everyone who is really sick. Great News!!
2. Its reasonable to suppose there will be prioritisation of patients in the first few years, which is completely fair, given the cost.
3. For everyone else who wants treatment now, they will still need to look to generics, e.g. with fixHepC
But Wait A Minute!
Who wants to bet on whether the Australian Government will source from Gilead or from the generics?
If its from Gilead, guess what kind of "voluntary" anti-generic deal Gilead will try to slip in ???
Oh, shit... Now is the time for everyone in Australia to do some very heavy lobbying !!! .
We live in dangerous times.
Diagnosed Jan 2015: GT3, A0+F0/F1. Fatigue + Brain-Fog.
Started Sof+Dac from fixHepC 10-Nov-2015. NO sides.
Pre-Tx: AST 82, ALT 133, Viral Load 1 900 000.
Week4: AST 47, ALT 58. VL < 15 (unquantifiable).
Week12 (EOT): AST 30, ALT 26, VL UND
Week16 (EOT+4): AST 32, ALT 28, GGT 24, VL UND
Week28 (EOT+16): AST 26, ALT 22, GGT 24, VL UND
Ever grateful to Dr James.
Relapsed somewhere after all that... Bummer!
Jan 2018: VL 63 000 (still GT3).