What is difference between paying 10$ for a bottle of water and paying $20 for a steak?
That's a 12 count package there genius. So each bottle works out to $1.35 (I included the CRV to make it easier on your obviously overtaxed brain).
I think it's quite excessive to call them "evil". "Invented cure for horrible disease" and "evil" seems almost paradoxical when used in the same sentence. People have been lamenting for years how pharma is not interested in finding cures, but instead only care about money making therapies that are simply meant to extend life and maximize profits. Now we have this company that has a cure for the first significant disease since what, Polio, and they're evil? They are just one cog in the vast broken wheel that is the American health care system. Doctors/labs/hospitals overcharging because they only get a fraction of what they ask for from insurance, thereby screwing patients with the balance. Insurance companies screwing doctors/hospitals by reimbursing only a fraction of the costs, and screwing patients with denied claims and burdensome pre-auth processes. Patients then screwing doctors/hospitals because they can't afford to the balance. Imho as long as profit is tied to one's right to life, the system is forever fucked.
So the millions of people in the US that have Hep C, and if there has already been a cure since the '90's, are all these people still currently infected because the side effects were too bad, they can't afford treatment, or because the existing treatment hasn't worked? Not disputing what you are saying, but trying to understand why there are millions of people still infected if there's already a cure.
Let me exaggerate, but just a bit. Let's say human population is hit by really dangerous and lethal virus, it's spreading rapidly and killing lots of people all around the world. All big pharma companies start to seek for a cure and/or to produce a vaccine and they succeed!!! They spent NNN$ for R&D and calculated that can make pretty good profit selling the drug for 200 $, but the owner of the company - said NO!! it's gonna be 200 000 $ All powerful and rich men get a vaccine or cure and live, all the rest just DIE . They can't fight for the drug, they just can't do anything - they just die !! How does that sound? Pretty good, ah? Yes, it's very good for rich and powerful part of the population: they are saved from the death, the planet is cleansed from overpopulation etc. Something very similar is happening with sofosbuvir and later will definitely happen with daclatasvir. Did I make myself clear ? Or you will continue to rant that all 170 mln HCV positive have 80 K $ available for a treatment ?
Frenzied Wombat , please try not to mock at sick people, at least, ok ?
Kuriin is right, Hep C has been treatable for a long time. Treatments in the past primarily consisted of interferon injections (PegIntron ) over the course of a couple of months. Unfortunately this treatment is extremely difficult to get through. Interferon is what your body uses to initiate an immune response. Interferon triggers inflammation. Patients who go on interferon treatments basically go through a months long flu to clear the HEP C virus. Most never complete it due to the harsh side-effects.
Sofosbuvir is going to be used in conjunction with Ribavirin and/or PegIntron. Sofosbuvir actually increases the chance of viral clearance to almost 100% and also shortens the treatment time. BTW there are quite a few more Hep C drugs in the pipeline besides Sofosbuvir. It will be interesting to see what Gilead does once those medications have completed their clinical trials.PegIntron_sl said:
