Hey V,
Headed to the doc now to get my “official” 4 week lab results. When I return, I will pick an area to pursue. As far as denials of treatment based on price: given that HCV has been proven to be a potentially life-threatening disease and there is a proven, extremely effective “cure” available, I would argue that every denial was cost based.
Mike

Thanks V. All good questions.

“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.”

I think the main problem, and not just for today, is that Gilead have set a precedent and gotten away with it. Do you really think that this crap stops with Gilead? I don’t see other companies advertising that their new drugs are going to be half the price. I hope the future proves me wrong.

What has happened is due to systemic failure of all the parties. Gilead just happen to be at the sharp end right now. The government is at the base and there are many other moving parts in the middle. I don’t advocate a root and branch clearout, and I’m not clever enough to figure out what “tweaks” are needed to turn this around, but I do think that pointing the finger just at Gilead is not going to cut it. The Gilead monster didn’t just happen on its own. It is the tip of the iceberg. It was spawned by a whole system that made it virtually inevitable that this would happen sooner or later.

Geez, when I started this I really didn’t expect this concept to be so roundly rejected, it seemed so self-evident to me. I’ve been scared of the virus, I’ve been scared of ordering the gererics, but I’m more scared now because if you guys don’t get it then nobody will. Which means that it’s a done deal for all the Gileads of the future, and that future looks even more bleak.

dt

Well, right now, we are being forced to react. It it working to some extent. We can keep running an “end around” until the other team decides to focus on stopping it. Then we can adjust. The Vietnamese strategy of the elephant and the tiger. It worked then and it will work now.
We will win in the end, but it will be costly. People will die.
Mike

Thank you Vororo, your posts here have been very well put.

I suspect that multinational companies such as Gilead are outside the control or influence of any individual or national government, however I do know that they are adverse to bad publicity especially when it is ongoing and from multiple directions. Probably not because of any moral embarrassment but because it tends to undermine investor confidence.
There is a lot of injustice in the world but this site is about helping people with Hep C. There are at least 150 million world wide with this virus of whom at least half a million per year die from its effects. There is currently one drug that (when used with others) offers promise to all those people and this drug is Sofosbuvir. This drug and its pricing is largely under the control of Gilead who have chosen to take the low road of maximum profit (obscenely so) ahead of the health, wellbeing and lifespan of those with the virus.

So, yeah, I’m happy to contribute to anything that can embarrass Gilead into reviewing their policy on pricing of Sofosbuvir. Change has to start somewhere and initial focus in one area is a proven method to success.

G

One thing that may help people searching the net for data about Gilead, or pretty much anything else is a “Site” search in case you are not aware how to use them.

Not very sophisticated but is useful where you know a site name and suspect there may be useful info that you want to find. Especially useful for forums where the search engine is rubbish, as many are

or the site only allows members to search

So open your favourite search engine and type in:

Hope that helps.

G

http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-270B-1639

Good old Gilead…,,

Foxes in charge of the henhouse, huh

“shareholders will be allowed to vote on resolutions that would require the drug makers to publish reports evaluating the risks of the pricing policies for the medicines

….As a result of some pricing strategies, there may be real and practical consequences with payers and policy implications in the form of potential oversight or regulation,” says Meredith Miller, the chief corporate governance officer for the trust.

Specifically, the trust wants to know drug development costs; relationships between pricing, clinical benefits and patient access; price disparities between the U.S. and other countries; price sensitivity of payers and patients; and whether payers are increasingly likely to use cost-effectiveness techniques to make reimbursement decisions.”