A couple points … first, this guy wasn’t “the inventor,” he was …

Sr. Vice President of Chemistry at Pharmasset, Inc. He joined Pharmasset in 2005 and had responsibility for research strategy, medicinal chemistry, process research, computational chemistry and analytical chemistry functions and was a clinical development project leader. He is an inventor of Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), a treatment of hepatitis C infection currently approved and marketed by Gilead Sciences, Inc.

http://www.oncorebiopharma.com/leadershipteam/

Why he’s given some co-inventor status is a mystery because it looks like he came on board after the drug was developed, but before the trials were completed.

If you’re looking for a person to call “THE inventor” it would be Raymond Schinazi who had left the company before the sale to Gilead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_F._Schinazi

… or possibly Jeremy Clark, who actually created the molecule …

In 2002, a young chemist at Pharmasset, called Jeremy Clark, came up with a compound, called PSI-6130, that would bind, very unusually, with the hepatitis C virus in two places at once. Despite PSI-6130 having been licensed to Roche the following year, the much larger company failed to derive a working drug from the molecule, which, several years later, under Schinazi’s guidance at Pharmasset, turned out to be PSI-7977.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/542ad524-8b77-11e2-b1a4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3lD22Lvzo

Other interesting tidbits.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/22/us-pharmasset-founder-idUSTRE7AL2ES20111122#YejzQoYggQXmdVWq.97

In any case, I think aiming any anger at those from Pharmasset is misguided. The evil is at Gilead.

None of Schinazi’s companies had any expertise in production, distribution or marketing. Their only expertise was in development. They had no ability talent wise or financially to take the drugs to market and did what any development company does … sell the drug to a marketing company.

Thanks for correcting my error on Sofia’s role klhilde, appreciate it.

And you are spot-on, Gilead knew who to run with for marketing. Reading certain online forums…its all about Harvoni, with the Bangladeshi version seen as inferior. Let alone suggesting those suspect Chinese API’s….and honestly I thought the same way until I found this site and had a swift re-education lol

If you are looking for justification for any of the players in this saga then it can always be found.

I was speaking to a shareholder of Gilead the other day. He felt that he was doing the right thing to buy into Gilead, on the basis that pharmaceutical companies need investment to continue developing life-saving drugs for humanity.

There are many shades of grey in this tapestry.

dt

OK, I’m not finished with this subject, because a recital of “Gilead is Evil” does not satisfy me, not nearly.

There have been monumental disasters in history before. In the aftermath, the questions about who is to blame and who should be punished for it, have always come up.

Take the 2008 financial crash for one example. I have watched documentary after documentary about this. While it is fairly clear what happened and why it happened, for some reason it is not at all transparent who is to be held responsible. I have heard testimony by some of the major players, none of whom considered themselves to have done anything wrong. So far, history seems to agree with them. To date, hardly anybody has been prosecuted, let alone convicted, for perpetrating this disaster which brought the economy of the world to its knees and caused untold suffering to many.

Contrast this with the aftermath of WW2. On that occasion, all of the perpetrators that could be identified were hunted down for the rest of their lives and the lives of the hunters and the harmed. The ones that were found and judged to be guilty of war crimes, which included the slaughter of millions of innocents, they went down for it. The age old excuses ie.
– I was just following orders.
– I only did what I had to do in the context of the situation.
– I was just a small cog in a large machine. I had no control over it.
These reasons did not wash with the war crimes tribunals and the courts.

So the question right here and now is:
How are we at fixhepc going to judge this monumental failure to eradicate hepC, which is the very raison d’etre of fixhepc in the first place? Is this just a place where people tow the party line, ie. Gilead is evil, end of!
Or can we have something approaching a rational ethical debate?

I mean, here we stand in the middle of what I would take for a sci-fi movie if I didn’t know it was real. The World being held to ransom by one company who rations out the life-saving drugs that are needed for 150 million people, ensuring a perpetual plague, – c’mon, how likely is that?

So is it the fault of Gilead’s CEO?
Then how do you square it that he could not do what he is doing without agreement and collusion from his high command?
Where do you draw the line?
Do you stop with Gilead’s high command, and exonerate everybody else?

Well, this is what they actually did after ww2. They joined up the dots all the way down to the people who designed and built the ovens and must have had some idea as to their intended use. They went for them. Was that blame misplaced? You decide. After 2008 they did nothing of the kind. Nobody caused 2008 apparently, it just kinda happened. A select few got filthy rich. That just kinda happened too. All legal.

So what I’m getting to is this. I guess it is up to us to decide what kind of court we are running here and where we want to draw the line. Is it not incumbent on us to do a little better than “Gilead is Evil” for the millions of people without a voice who will continue to suffer and die from hepC because of this monumental debacle? Maybe there should be a “Name & Shame” list set up, maybe not here but someplace. Maybe there should be historical documentation done by somebody about how on God’s green earth we all let this mess happen? And how it might be prevented again in the future – probably futile but we have to try, don’t we?

And finally an acknowledgement of the work done by Greg and the Doc and the few others who have had the courage to make a stand, the bright stars in a murky sky.

dt

Hi dointime,

For my part I have no wish to participate in any self appointed “court” that sits in judgement on big Pharmco or others that you mention. I suspect that history will judge them appropriately.
I do not believe that Gilead or any of its staff are necessarily “evil”. Greedy, unethical or misguided? Yes!
I do believe that it is appropriate for people to point out unconscionable conduct such as the statement by Paul Carter in the second paragraph of the OPs link.
I will take the time to post what you call “justification” and I call “explaining broader context” when I see people passing judgements on the basis of guilt by association.

I do however agree with your final sentence.

G

Well, I guess its my turn to weigh in. Gilead is like a really spoiled kid who can get away with anything. It seems the parents feel any discipline might inhibit little Gilly’s potential, so no spankings or priviledges lost. He can do as he pleases.
The free market system should not apply to life saving drugs, just as it doesn’t in times of emergency- like after a hurricane. After such a disaster, it is unlawful to jack the price up on essential goods. If merchants do, they faced hefty fines or worse.
The government made that the law of the land-no price gouging when lives are at stake in times of emergency.

The government needs to tell little Gilly enough of this crap.
Don’t hold your breath. They like Gilly’s money more than our lives.
Plus, we are “damaged” goods.
If Gilly hit a home run for breast cancer and tried this, I really believe those fools in Washington would do something-not to save the women, but to get more votes.
Sad.
Mike

Well, I guess it’s now my turn to weigh-in,

Dear dt, miko3, gaj, mgalbrai (sorry if I am missing anyone),

I totally agree with your sentiments. But while the scale of what is happening with hepatitis C is global, I think it is a mistake to make a comparison with the financial crisis of 2009 or even WW2 war crimes.

The main problem with hepatitis C today is the price of treatment set by Gilead, coupled with the fact that they have managed to secure a near-global monopoly through crafty licensing deals and market segmentation. They were not “following orders”, they were not “forced to do it by the market”. It was their own ethical and business decision.

However Gilead might have arrived at this position, we all think the consequences are evil. We are not prepared to be patients who will wait patiently in line… We are out-raged and we have no patience!

But if we are to be taken seriously by our governments and their decision-makers we have to turn that anger into hard facts from reliable and citable sources:

* How much, exactly, is the mark-up on cost of production to sales price?
* How much money, exactly, do the Gilead board members make each year?
* What is the rate of return, exactly, on each Gilead share per year?
* How much of Gilead’s turn-over, exactly, goes into R&D?
* How much of Gilead’s turn-over, exactly, goes into legal costs?
* How much of Gilead’s turn-over, exactly, goes into marketising and advertising?
* How much of Gilead’s turn-over, exactly, goes into government lobbying?
* How much of Gilead’s turn-over, exactly, goes to taxation?

* How many people die each year because their government could not afford to treat them?
* How many more people could be treated if the cost was halved?
* What would academic experts consider to be a fair price for treatment?

* How many on-line Hepatitis C support groups are funded by Gilead?
* How many on-line Hepatitis C support groups funded by Gilead censor posts about generics?

* How many people with F3/F4 are treated each year by government-funded health programs?
* How many people with F0-F2 are not treated by government-funded health programs?
* How many people are being “ware-housed” until the price falls?

* How many people are actually treated through one of Gilead’s aid programs?

…
… No doubt many more questions like this can and should be asked.
…

Obviously, a lot of people came to fixHepC firstly to get a treatment. But it now seems equally clear that many of those same people are staying on fixHepC to try to help others.

I don’t want to attack or blame anyone. But I personally believe that trying to get answers to the above questions is a legitimate way to really help others get the treatment that they deserve.

Today everyone expects that fair treatment in law is a basic human right. We have to get to the point where everyone expects that medical treatment for a fair price is also a basic human right.

Yours,

Vororo.