Today, which happens to be my birthday, Malaysia gave its citizens a present. Cabinet has agreed to issue a compulsory licence on the Gilead HCV medication Sofosbuvir.

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/report-cabinet-approves-compulsory-license-for-hepatitis-c-generics

What this means is the Sofosbuvir patent can be ignored and Malaysia will be able to import generic Sofosbuvir.

So what about Ledipasvir and Daclatasvir, afterall we need 2 drugs.

No this won’t impact that but it turns out DNDi, Pharco and Presidio have a rather tidy pan-genotypic NS5A inhibitor called Ravidasvir, which was co-incidentally trialled in Malaysia. This is essentially the same as Velpatasvir.

So no prizes for joining the dots. Sofosbuvir+Ravidasvir – coming to a town near you (at least if you live in Malaysia).

More on Ravidasvir here: https://www.dndi.org/diseases-projects/portfolio/sofosbuvir-hepc/