Hep C Discussion Forum

of course they increased cost to 84k$, those 11billion $ invested in purchase of Pharmasset have to be returned FAST ;)

Mind it, i still find 36k $ too much for a government sponsored/tax payers money research of this marvelous chemical taken/swaped into private hands for billions. That does not only includes Sofosbuvir yet all other overpriced meds.

I would love to see what the real cost, excluding marketing, of Sofosbuvir. Research, clinical trials, insurance, manufacturing, production, etc. Estimation is that production cost of Sofosbuvir is roughly 4$ per gram (each tablet is 400mg), so lets say 50cents per pill. Lets do for fun some numbers.

I know someone said it costs from 100mil-1bil$ for a new drug to be placed on market (up to 10years of research.trials). Lets say Sofosbuvir development costed 1bil $ (mind it, estimated value of Pharmasset was cca 3bil $). Considering there are round 3mil chronic hcv patients in USA, if everyone opted in for Sofosbuvir tx (most GT1, so lets say 3month tx, 84pills), thats 252mil pills with production cost of 126mil $+1bil $ of development cost = 1.256 mil $ / no. of patients 3 mil. =418$ per tx without profit, lets say they want 10 times profit, thats still 4k$ per patient cost of tx. Whole different story when someone buys a company for 11bil $ and wants ROI in first year (whats Gilead been doing). Still they could have easily sell it for 40k$ thats half the price they sell, still darn expensive, but they would be a) cheaper than other DAA b) wont be on all media news as most exp price per pill and be less perceived as greedy evil money loving company they are d) they could still sell to 3rd world countries with 99% discount and get a positive PR they badly need (they are doing it now tho) c) have ROI in 2 years, instead first year

Instead we got situations like this. My hepa is looking desperatly for her F4 relapse patients some Olyisio and Sovaldi and keep getting insane offers/prices. Like she received from Sovaldi distributor in Croatia, 120k EUR (168k $) for 168 pills (half that for 3 bottles). In Croatia average sallary is round 1k $, in Bosnia it's round 500$. What insurance can afford this price? what uninsured person can afford it? What govrnment in lower income countries can afford to subsidise this?

Antiretrovirals drugs for HIV real costs are 1$ per day (3pills in one), thats 360$ per year, but they sell em for 15k $ per year in USA and yet they block generic companies with all means to sell drugsto Africa where even 1$ per day is expensive. Production cost of antiretrovirals is simillar to hcv meds. Whats wrong with this planet? :( In ideal world life saving drugs would be forbiden to be in free market race...but seems we allowed free market economy to have 0 moral/ethics and we and whole biosphere on this planet will suffer greatly cause of it.


/rant over