http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/big-karma-hits-big-pharma-as-biotech-shares-plunge-after-pricegouging-accusations-20151202-gldg59.html

If you are quiet enough you can hear the whistle of share prices crashing to the ground.

I really like number 3

Thought the same thing, zhuk.

I had these dreams of mixing sofosbuvir and Mike’s male pattern baldness medication and capsulating it. Obviously not a complete solution but a significant number of male hepers are bald so it would be a start.

On a more serious note it seemed too easy so I did a bit of checking and apparently the active ingredient in Daraprim is well out of patent. But not a very big market so not worth any competitors catering to until Turing pushed the price though the roof and restricted distribution which then made it worthwhile for ExpressScripts to smash the market with a $1 capsule to avoid paying Turing.

Hi,

There is an article by D. Lavanchy (Feb 2011, Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 17:107-115) which gives a breakdown by country of the numbers of people infected by Hep-C (Table 1). The total comes to 158 910 617. Or roughly 160 Million people. The figure for Australia is 227 331, or roughly 230 Million, which agrees with the figure often quoted elsewhere.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1198743X14616487

For the impatient, this shows USA: 5 367 834; UK: 659 032; France: 814 281; Germany 620 168; Spain: 906 340; Italy: 1 923 136, Russia: 5 796 498; Japan: 3 058 008, for example)

Someone at hepcoalition.org used these figures to calculate, by country, the total numbers of people excluded by the Gilead “Voluntary Licence”:

http://www.hepcoalition.org/IMG/pdf/countries_excluded_gilead_s_vl.pdf

The total comes to 73 087 095, or roughly 73 Million. If we set aside China (29 791 212, or roughly 30 Million), which has not accepted Gilead’s patents and can therefore manufacture as much sofosbuvir as it likes, this leaves roughly 43 Million infected people who live in countries that are at the mercy of Gilead’s pricing monopoly.

If we then take Gilead’s price of $84 000 per treatment, we get a grand total of 84 000 x 43 000 000 = $ 3 612 000 000 000, or roughly $ 3.6 TRILLION as the cost to treat everyone in the “developed” world with Hep-C.

If we take a price of $ 1 000 as the baseline cost of a treatment under Gilead’s voluntary licence, then the cost to treat everyone else outside of China (160 – 30 – 43 Million = 87 Million) comes to $ 87 000 000 000, or $87 BILLION.

According the recent analysis by US senators Wyden and Grassley (see full report, page 2, http://fixhepc.com/blog.html), Gilead have sold $26.6 Billion worth of sofosbuvir in the 21 months up to October 2015. Given that they paid “only” $ 11 Billion to Pharmasset to acquire the rights to the molecule, they have already recouped their costs and made an enormous return on their investment.

Also according to Wyden and Grassley, of the $ 26.6 Billion sales, $20.6 Billion was to US customers. Now, 20 600 000 000 / 84 000 = 245 000 treatments. And 245 000 / 5 367 834 = 0.045. In other words, only 4.5 % of Americans with the disease have been treated.

Of course these calculations are only estimates.

But let’s carry on and do the same kind of estimate for outside of the US with the remaining $ 6 Billion. We know that the europeans pay less because its harder to screw a foreign government than an american insurance company. So let’s guess a an average price for europe and the rest of the world of $ 60 000. This gives 6 000 000 000 / 60 000 = 1 000 000 or 1 Million people. Now 1 000 000 / 43 000 000 = 0.023. In other words, to date, only about 2.5% of people in the “developed” world have been treated.

So with all the big numbers out of they way, we can now see that Gilead are making a shit-load of money (which we all knew already by now), while still leaving the vast majority of people untreated.

Yours,

Absolutely speechless.

Thanks Zhuk.

But I stopped just a bit too soon. Setting the absolutely criminal price aside for a brief moment, with just a bit more math we can say that at the present rate it will take about 22 years to treat all 5.3 Million Americans with the disease, and about 40 years to treat the rest of the “developed” world.

When will Gilead’s patents run out? They’re normally good for about 17 years, or maybe 20 with some creative thinking?

Not good news, for what is supposed to be a break-through treatment.

Oops, I made a mistake. I forgot that the percentage treatment rates are for 21 months of sales. So in fact, for the USA the rate of treatment is more like 2.6% per year, and for the rest of the world it is more like 1.4% per year.

Sorry for the mistake.

So… setting the absolutely criminal price aside for a brief moment, with the right math this time we can say that at the present rate it will take about 38 years to treat all 5.3 Million Americans with the disease, and about 71 years to treat the rest of the “developed” world.

As before, Gilead’s patents could be good for from between about 17 to up to 20 years. And of course, the price will fall rapidly once the patents expire and generics will flood the market. But assuming my math is right this time, we are still looking at only about 17*1.4 = 24 % of americans and getting treated if Gilead continue to have things their way, with the rest having to wait until Gilead’s patents expire.

And the calculation looks even worse for the rest of the “developed” world.

Hi Alsdad,

Yeah, sure, based on static figures. I was really just trying to work out for myself what percentage of people who are currently identified with the disease are actually getting treated now, or who actually have any hope of getting treated in the next few years, taking into account current prices.

Obviously, there are still new infections every year, and people are dying every year, so the reality is probably worse than my quick estimates. So you’re right, despite the best efforts of national health services, we are going nowhere fast.

Despite the fact that a perfectly good treatment now exists.