Great news, however I cannot understand Gilead’s “joke” at the end:

A spokesman for Gilead said that price was not a limiting factor in patient access because Nice had deemed the treatment cost-effective and the drugs were “offered to the NHS with substantial discounts”.

On what planet is he/she living?

From what I understand Dr Ryder, who is extremely pro-active at highlighting the plight of English HepC patients, says that if NHS England had agreed to treat 5,000 more patients, Gilead would have reduced the price even more. Quite rightly he doesn’t understand why they haven’t done this. I wonder why. (Note, no ?).

Portugal eg agreed to treat ALL and have done so, in fairness to Gilead, they got the drugs at a highly reduced price and apparently 96% Portuguese HepC patients are now cured.

NHS England is now full of highly paid managerial suits with privatisation and business interests at heart, not patients (some corruption cases recently brought to light) , if we leave Europe I reckon we can wave goodbye to free healthcare. Some great NHS staff who are treated badly under this government know it, one told me ‘The NHS are bastards’. eg they just got a ‘payrise’ of 1% a friend told me with the current rise in National Insurance (originally set up to pay for free NHS treatment ha ha) his wage packet was actually less than before his pay rise. Meanwhile our Gvt (most who have shares & interested in private medical companies & big pharma and something like 90% who were born millionaires) recently awarded themselves a 14% payrise while trying to cut junior Dr pay causing the first NHS strike in decades.

NHS Scotland however are on a mighty path to eliminate HepC and are way ahead.

The HepC Trust are raising funds for a judicial review to question the legailty.

Sadly, It’s a corrupt mess and it would take a mighty force to untangle it.

Portugal eg agreed to treat ALL and have done so, in fairness to Gilead, they got the drugs at a highly reduced price and apparently 96% Portuguese HepC patients are now cured.

Err, not quite. Though I can see how the headlines may lead to that assumption.

The 96% is actually the SVR rate among those who have been treated. As at April 2016 at the Barcelona conference it was announced that 7,011 patients had been treated out ot approximately 13 thousand who were registered as hep c patients with their hospital clinics and therefore funded at the time that the government promised universal access. I’ve been unable to find the size of the Portuguese HCV population but assuming it is somewhere in line with other European countries then 1% of the population seems a reasonable estimate which would mean approx. 100,000 potential patients.

http://m.digitaljournal.com/life/health/portugal-agrees-to-treat-13-000-hepatitis-c-sufferers-for-free/article/425590

Certainly a good news story in that their government has promised to treat everyone at some point in the future but not quite there yet.