TOPIC:

VA expands hepatitis C treatment to all patients with the virus
Patricia Kime, Military Times

The Veterans Affairs Department will begin providing hepatitis C treatment to all veterans in its health system who have the virus, regardless of their disease stage, VA officials said Wednesday.


hepatitiscnewdrugs.blogspot.com/2016/03/...reatment-to-all.html

Hooray!!!

Garry Owen!!

Oorah!!

This is what I call awesome news really chuffed too hear so many will now access treatment.

Mike,am sure all your work bringing too this to the fore has helped.....

Thanks,
Price is the shaker and mover on this.
Way to go P!

M...that is good news. According to the article it appears Merck's Zepatier
might be the medication used....pushing Gilead out, hopefully. Downward
pricing is inevitable. Wonder what Merck will be charging....e.

According to this article, the list price of zepatier is $54,600 for 12 weeks.

www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-0...ld-be-a-game-changer

Coming after Gilead, this makes Merck look like angels. But no doubt the usual game is at play. Namely, charge whatever the market will bear, keeping in mind the price set by the competition.

I expect sooner or later someone will work out how much it really cost Merck to develop zepatier, and how much it really costs to make the stuff.

And then, no doubt, we will discover once again that there are no angels in the world of Big Pharma. Only Big Businessmen...

Yes, the old "list" price song and dance. What discounts the various insurance companies and government agencies get seems to be very closely held. Rumors in the US put Harvoni in the mid $40,000 range for insurers after Viekira cut their deal with Express Scripts, but nobody seems to be certain except the drug and insurance companies and they aren't saying. I filed an FOI with my state-run insurance company to find out what they were paying, but couldn't because they hadn't treated ANYONE at the time.
Maybe someone will leak the info.
Its hard to believe the government could keep anything secret

From hepatitiscnewdrugresearch:

As a reminder, AbbVie announced a list price of about $83,300 for a standard course of Viekira Pak after the product was approved Friday, but the drug maker is providing a discount to Express Scripts in order to secure favorable coverage. Neither company has revealed the discount and declined to discuss details, although Porges writes it is in the neighborhood of 40%.

- See more at: hepatitiscnewdrugresearch.com/viekira-pa...sthash.gE7S60q3.dpuf

This is great news!

I did read however here www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-0...ld-be-a-game-changer
that Merck is putting the "discount" into the list price to make Gilead look bad. But both drugs will cost insurers about the same,

Good news!!
Hope Australia does the same too.

x

Thanks. We got some help from the big advocates and getting media coverage has helped us tremendously.

Unfortunately, we will need to continue fighting. Congress gave the VA 1.5 billion to be used for treatment. The VA gets a discount from Gilead. They pay $41,000 for 12 weeks of Sof. So obviously when they say they will treat all Veterans they're lying. One thing you can always count on with the VA is lies.

I'm attaching the official memo that says they will treat all and the "use of prioritization protocol to determine eligibility for treatment is no longer in effect" (You know, the prioritization protocol they denied having that said only treat Stage 4).

Then right below it says that even though they are not limiting treatment, facilities should make sure that the Stage 4's get treated first....and if that is not prioritization I don't know what is.

Last, but not least, it says the funding is for meds but they have no funding for staffing or laboratory testing.

Oh, come on, you didn't really think they were ready to do the right thing, did you?

We still consider it great news. To all Veterans....now is the time to treat. If they deny you treatment, contact HCVets.com and let us know.

To all of you....thank you, for opening your hearts to people you didn't even know. For including Veterans in your posts and helping us pass our message. To Dr Freeman because some of the info he posted was instrumental in the CBS story.

What's next for us?

Apply pressure so they'll let us use generics, of course. I'm talking to the other adviocates about generics...and just wait until I show them that the VA included Veterans in some of Gilead's Sovaldi/Olysio studies back in May 2014 without telling them they were in studies (Sovaldi/Olysion got FDA approval Nov 2014). They were told the VA was "using sofosbuvir off label. I think the money they made from participating in studies should be used to treat the rest, don't you think?.....(and people wonder why I walk around mad all the time....ha!)

P

Our story made it on the Young Turks! So far over 50,000 views!

The Young Turks (TYT) is the largest online news show in the world, with over 1.5 billion views and counting. Hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian break down news, politics, entertainment, and current events without scripts or teleprompters and without any corporate bias....and they're talking about the VA not treating Veterans and they are asking......

"What should we do to lower the cost of drugs in the US? Let us know in the comments below."

We would appreciate comments that mention generics.




P

“If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.”
― Mark Twain

“If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.”
― Mark Twain

I have to disagree with such populist cynicism. In fact I'd say it panders to those who would attempt to thwart change!

The VA administration was exposed as not looking after the veterans with HCV. The bad press that was generated meant they had to do something and they have to the tune of $1.5 billion......which isn't enough so they attempted to use smoke and mirrors in the hope that those who embarrassed them previously will leave them in peace.

Unlike MT, Price and her colleagues aren't fooled or disheartened and are continuing the fight. As she says, the veterans need your support and comments about generics.

Maybe this will help some of you other democracies better understand what old Sam was talking about!

www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-reason-for-the-electoral-college/

M