TOPIC: VA in USA urged to invoke emergency powers

The ongoing debate over the cost of prescription drugs took another twist as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) has asked the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to use emergency powers to break – or override – the patents on high-priced hepatitis C medicines sold by several drug makers, including Gilead Sciences

blogs.wsj.com/pharmalot/2015/05/12/sande...-abbvie-hep-c-drugs/

This is news worthy of a dancing woo hoo banana!! Bernie Saunders you little beauty!

But it's dated May 2015?

Thanks for pointing that out Joy...I didn't see that , maybe its a typo?

Hmmm... don't think so, the comments stretch from May to December last year. And there are some beauties. Full of ignorance. I guess breaking the patents hasn't worked...yet.

We can live in hope, something has to give sooner or later. Only hope its sooner

It won't happen.
The only time the NIH has "March in" rights to break the patent or grant other companies a license to produce generics, is if the company that holds the patent has not made efforts to commercialize it within an agreed upon time frame or if the “action is necessary to alleviate health or safety needs that are not being met by the company holding the patent.

So they have no grounds for using Bayh-Dole....and why would you want to anyway. If the patent is broken and other companies are given permission to develop generics, it would take years to get approval from the FDA. We can't wait years.

Let me put it this way, the NIH has always refused to get involved when requests were made for them to interfere because of pricing issues. For example, in 2004, the HIV group complained to them and asked them to interfere when the drug company increased the price of a med 400%.

"The NIH denied the petition finding no grounds to exercise its march-in rights. The NIH cited:
The availability of Norvir to patients with AIDS.
That there was no evidence that health and safety needs were not adequately met by Abbott, and
That the NIH should not address the issue of drug pricing, only Congress."

So If you want to break patent Congress would have to do it.

PP

No reason to break any patents in any case. Gilled have been very responsive in their licensing deals for the generics and take, from what I've read, something like a 7% royalty – although I need to verify this.

The Australian agreement is interesting, also, with the price from Gilead being in the ballpark of $30,000 per treatment, which is only double what the Peg-interferon used to cost ($14,000–15,000). Some shrewd negotiating on both sides. And no reason for anyone here to complain, as the government will be footing the bill, which is an extraordinary thing!

So, in addition to Gilead, FixHepC, and the Australian Government, we really need to extend our thanks to the taxpayers of Australia, who will be underwriting this whole exercise.

This is all quite extraordinary!

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?

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?

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!

Can we have the facility to hide the posts of specific members like they have on some forums? There's one members' posts I'd just rather not bother reading.

The VA pays Gilead $50,000 per treatment (even though Dr Schinazi, who invented Sof, did it while working for the VA and the VA and NIH funded him). But even with the discount they're saying they can't afford to treat all veterans and there are still thousands of undiagnosed Veterans under their care.

In June 2015, the VA said they had a total of 233,000 Veterans under their care but only 180,000 were eligible for treatment (and that meant that they've had a viral load and genotype done. Can you imagine that? The assholes can deny treatment by not doing the tests they're supposed to do. So they have treated a total of only 39,000 Veterans (that includes treatment with interferon). Since interferon came out on the market in 1991, that means that in 24 years the VA has only treated 39,000 (8,000 with the new treatments). At that pace, most of them will die.

The VA is so corrupt we are actually attempting the impossible but we keep trying. I visit this forum because when I see what Australians have done and how supportive they are of one another, it renews my faith in mankind.

PP

PP

Brazil got Abbvie's tx for $6,000.

P

Dear A.L.,

If you bought a new top of the range car with all the latest gadgets (speed control, air conditioning, parking assist, econo-boost engine, interior LEDs, the lot) for $50 000, you'd probably be pretty happy with the deal, right?

Suppose you then learn that the true cost of manufacturing that car (including all R&D and a fair profit margin) was only $1 000?

How would you feel about that?

This is how it is today with Gilead's prices ...

fixhepc.com/blog/item/25-the-real-develo...t-of-sofosbuvir.html

This is the hidden beauty of the fixhepc website, and what you all are doing here to benefit the whole world. In the USA, (and many other countries) it's the free market system. It's greed central. The politicians and all the media who rely on ads from corporations all follow the capitalistic story. You can complain, but if it's not mainstream, how the corporations want you to act so they can profit, you can't talk about it. No one says, "You can get generic medications shipped to USA from Australia, India or Bangladesh through a third party, a 3 month supply" To say this is to risk economic suicide, as the ads to your site or newspaper will cease immediately. The websites in USA about HepC that take ads from Gilead are forbidden to allow discussion of generics, or there will be no more ads from Gilead, or Abbie Vie, etc. I only learned by chance I could get meds shipped by finding this site, ironically the "Duckduckgo" search engine showed this site, Google does not list this site on a HepC search, so even they are paid off. My point here is somehow the Vets need to be made aware of this chance. It seems to me some members have posted on the US HepC forum websites about links to here. That is the smart way to go....guerilla advertising/warfare from offshore, saying "check out fixhepc for help / ideas," without talking about generics..entice people to come here and find out the truth. To post in the media or online in USA is to risk a lawsuit by a corporation and economic suicide or even legal action. Don't underestimate the power of the greedy elite. You can't confront Goliath. You have to hurl rocks from afar and get lucky to slay him! One lucky shot, right in the eye...David did it

While I completely agree with the post above, let us not forget that capitalism is the only reason these meds exist at all. Capitalism in all it's ugliness, is what has helped the world's poor the most. Generics is actually the free-market system at it's best.