Great video except for the puppet at the end
Thanks for posting

@beaches: I think nowadays it is a MUST for the news makers, TV channels, etc. to include such puppets in order to show or better say, defend their position of neutrality and allow the people to choose whatever version they consider as being true.
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On the other side, the message was quite clear: there exist affordable HCV medication and if you want to take it and you can do it, just think on what the puppet said at the end and make sure you take it from a trusted source . So the role of the puppet was to make one think twice, MHO, but not to give up.

I loved this video, thank you for sharing it.

The accent sounds like Maryland, or Virginia (DC area), but she’s obviously been in the UK long enough to pick up a fair amount of UK inflection. My guess – a former DC ‘fed’ of some type, now working internationally for big pharma.

Not uncommon at all for govt. officials, especially mid to high level officials to ‘retire’ to, or go over to corporate jobs in the private sector where they earn a lot more money. Not saying that is who she is. It is just a best guess.

Great video. Loved the first half of it.

But that silly jargon-speak woman at the end. She’s totally lying: if she had HCV and wasn’t being offered treatment, of course, she would go the generic route.

It’s fine for her to say that the National Institute of Clinical excellence has approved these drugs in the UK. It did that on the 1st of March, but the problem we have is that NHS England – who have the ultimate control of the purse strings – have placed a monthly cap on what each hospital can spend on DAAs, which effectively means that the NHS has to ration these drugs and give them to the most needy (i.e. people with cirrhosis) first, and everyone else has to wait until each hospital has worked its way through those patients before they can be treated….

…and in that time – which could take a couple of years in the busier hospitals – everyone else with HCV is getting sicker; to the extent that a significant proportion of these people will be unable to work and thus place a greater cost burden on the taxpayer through a llfe time of benefits than the cost of treatment of treating them now would do.

Short term thinking. Don’t wait, is what I say.

Hello A L
I am struggling to understand how you can think that comment shows bigotry.
I just listened to the woman at the end of this clip and she is being very careful to be neutral. The talk about value vs price is quite frankly insulting to anyone with HepC and to anyone capable of thinking critically.
Her comments about the price the British Govt is paying for the DAAs and the deal they have negotiated mean nothing at all, firstly because she is not committing to them and just generalising, and secondly because they are probably not true. I know the Australian Govt paid just under $AUD70,000 for my treatment, and if the Govt thinks they got a good deal they weren’t trying very hard.
Another thing… Anyone who talks about Gilead developing Harvoni is either misinformed or lying. Gilead did not develop it. They had a choice of 3 products to buy and I guess they won Lotto when they picked Harvoni. They have made their money back many times over.
And as for an American being a spokesperson, for an American to be Executive Director of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (a public service) and then to publicly plug big pharma…. if you call that bigotry you are welcome to your opinion but so am I and my opinion is that you are misinformed or missing the point.

Gil’s Tire: “Well certainly sir, I can get your tire fixed in twelve minutes … just go ahead and write me a check for twenty thousand dollars.”

Fly Guy: “$20,000! That’s insane!”

Gil: “No sir …. it’s the middle of the night. Go ahead and try, none of the other repair guys will even answer their phone this late.”

Fly: “It’s just a tire!”

Gil: “Oh no sir, you’ve already explained to me that if this tire doesn’t get fixed quickly you’ll miss your flight. And you’ve said that if you miss that flight you’ll miss your contract signing and you won’t make the sale. You’ll personally be out $25,000. That being the case I think it’s entirely reasonable that I charge you $20,000 for the service. After all, I’m saving you $5000.”

Fly: “It’s just a tire, you do this all the time and $20,000 is a totally unreasonable amount of money.”

Gil: “I think we are focusing a lot on price and what I didn’t hear at all was the value that you’re getting through the way I’m enabling you to save your deal. Now you can make out the check and we’ll get this done … write it to me personally …. My name is Gilead.”