To understand how ObamaCare is already bending the future of U.S. medical progress, consult the furor over specialty drug prices, as an alliance of convenience among third-party payers assails pharmaceutical innovation as too costly. Maybe patients should give up on cures and, as President Obama once put it, just take the painkiller.
This new defeatism has been triggered by the fake crisis of one of the most successful drug launches in modern history, the Gilead Sciences GILD -0.77% therapy for Hepatitis C. About 3.2 million Americans are infected with this blood-borne disease of the liver, which kills about 80,000 people a year, or five times the death rate of AIDS. Now a biologic drug called Sovaldi cures the virus in at least nine of 10 patients, and perhaps even 98%. ...
... PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates Sovaldi and other Hep C therapies will spike the U.S. medical cost trend by 0.5% in 2014, and some commercial insurers may miss their profit forecasts as a result of the pent-up need.
Friday, July 25, 2014 (3:40 am) | Worthy News / US NewsWASHINGTON D.C. (Worthy News)– A new drug called Solvaldi, created by Gilead Sciences', cures Hepatitis C, however it comes with a $84,000 price tag for a 12-week treatment course. With 3.2 million Americans who carry Hepatitis C, the drug could break Obamacare.
Expensive specialty drugs aren't new to health care. But Sovaldi stands out because it is aimed at helping millions of Americans who carry hepatitis C, and a large share of those infected are low-income and qualify for government coverage. Its arrival also coincides with the aggressive expansion of Medicaid and private coverage under the Affordable Care Act, whose purpose was to extend health care to tens of millions Americans who previously couldn't afford it.
Sovaldi has prompted fears among insurers and state officials that the breakthrough drug, despite its benefits, could explode their budgets. And that has sparked an urgent and highly sensitive debate in Medicaid offices across the country: How far should society go to make sure the poor get the best available treatments? — Source
... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 3.2 million people in the country are infected with the chronic liver disease hepatitis C, which kills about 15,000 Americans each year – higher than the rate of HIV-related deaths. Hepatitis C, which is most commonly spread through needles, can lead to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis or liver cancer if left untreated. ...
July 25 is National African American Hepatitis C Action Day (NAAHCAD), a national mobilization initiative aimed at reducing the high incidence of Hepatitis C infection in black communities. Officially proclaimed in July 2013, the event partners up The National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, Inc. (NBLCA), Coalition On Positive Health Empowerment (C.O.P.E.), and Harm Reduction Coalition to present their second annual Hepatitis C Action Day throughout the nation this Friday.
"We call this a 'day of action' because we need to ensure that deliberate actions are taken to stem the tide of the Hepatitis C epidemic in black communities throughout the nation," said NBLCA President and CEO C. Virginia Fields. "NBLCA and its partners are working together to create awareness about this critical and under-recognized health problem."
To promote awareness and draw attention to this neglected health disparity, the NAAHCAD initiative targets areas where the virus has the greatest impact on the African-American population. With the assistance of local health partners, government agencies, and elected officials, free testing and informational events will be offered throughout the day in various cities of the United States.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 3.2 million Americans -- more than 75 percent of whom are "Baby Boomers" born between 1945 and 1965 -- are infected with the Hepatitis C virus (HCV), and, because there are often no noticeable symptoms, most don't know they are infected. An estimated 22 percent of people living with chronic Hepatitis C are African American, a higher rate than whites and other racial and ethnic groups.
The first sentence lies by omission: Hep-C causes Diabetes Mellitis (type II, adult onset) is a significant number of infected, causes cryogubulin-induced rheumatic arthritis causing joint disintegration and excruciating lifelong pain, is a major cause of of highly deadly colon-rectal and stomach cancers, and in a high incidence causes weakness and fatigue robbing life of joy and quality.
To MINIMIZE Hepatitis C is to steal potential political support for drastic actions, such as capping the price of the drug which costs $67 to make the 84-pills cure.
To MINIMIZE Hepatitis C is to actively participate in the EUGENICS Mass Murder of blacks in America whom are afflicted at twice the rate of whites, re-doing all over again the Tuskegee Experiments on Syphilis, denying the drugs which cure Hep-C over invented excuses. The PATENT that grants the high prices comes from the DYING, is property of the citizens, not the corporations. Stop making excuses to BLOCKADE cures to people because the rich don't have enough money yet.
... Gilead is, naturally, suing Abbvie over this as well, saying that Abbvie has knowing mispresented to the USPTO that they invented the Gilead therapies. I'm not sure how that's going to play out: Abbvie didn't have to invent the drugs to get a method-of-use patent on them. At the same time, I don't know what sort of enablement Abbvie's patent claims might have behind them, given that these are, well, Gilead's compounds. The company is apparently claiming that a "sophisticated computer model" allows them to make a case that these combinations would be the effective ones, but I really don't know if that's going to cut it (and in fact, I sort of hope it doesn't). But even though I'm not enough of a patent-law guy to say either way, I'm enough of one to say, with great confidence, that this is going to be a very expensive mess to sort out. Gilead's also in court with Merck (and was with Idenix before Merck bought them), and with Roche, and will probably be in court with everyone else before all this is over. ...
... There is litigation involving Gilead ($GILD) and AbbVie ($ABBV), Merck ($MRK) and Idenix Pharmaceuticals ($IDIX) which Merck is buying. All three are developing their own hep C contenders. There is also a lawsuit from Roche ($RHHBY). The lawsuits represent the kinds of patent litigation more often seen in the high-tech industry than in pharma, where patent fights to stop generic products are more common, The Wall Street Journal asserts. ...
... In one lawsuit, Merck is accused of demanding a 10% share of Sovaldi sales in exchange for use of two Merck patents. Cambridge, MA-based Idenix filed suits against Gilead in France, Germany and the U.K. on grounds that the company infringed a recently granted European patent on nucleosides, as well as filing suit in the U.S. ...
... In the litigation involving AbbVie, that company says it has patented the process of combining two of Gilead's drugs--Sovaldi and an experimental drug called ledipasvir, which Gilead plans to combine into one treatment. While AbbVie doesn't have an ownership claim to the drugs, it is legal for companies to get patents for the "method of use" for products they don't own ...
... Gilead ... claims in litigation, that AbbVie and its former parent Abbott Laboratories ($ABT) conducted a "fraudulent scheme" to get the patents for the methods that it and Pharmasset developed for treating hepatitis C ...
Related Articles:
Merck demand triggers expanding patent war over Gilead's sofosbuvir
Gilead's hot-selling Sovaldi draws more patent attacks
Merck snatches Idenix for $3.8B as it watches Sovaldi gobble up market share
Shunned Gilead/Bristol-Myers hep C combo may be too good for docs to ignore
AbbVie readies production in anticipation of hep C treatment approval
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