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Massachusetts Warns Gilead About Hepatitis Drug Prices

Making people overpay for cure results in ‘massive public harm,’ attorney general says.

by Rick Mullin
January 29, 2016

POSTER DRUG
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Credit: Todd Smith/Digital World Biology
Gilead’s Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) offers a cure for hepatitis C at a price of $84,000 per course of treatment.
A ball and stick model of Sovaldi (sofosbuvir).
Credit: Todd Smith/Digital World Biology
Gilead’s Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) offers a cure for hepatitis C at a price of $84,000 per course of treatment.

Gilead Sciences has received a letter of warning from the attorney general of Massachusetts saying that levying high prices for its new hepatitis C virus (HCV) drugs may constitute an unfair trade practice in violation of Massachusetts law and that the state may pursue legal action if the company does not lower the prices.

Noting that the drugs, Sovaldi and Harvoni, costing $84,000 and $94,500, respectively, per course of treatment, offer a cure to patients, Attorney General Maura Healey claims in her Jan. 22 letter that Gilead is “pricing the treatment in a manner that effectively allows HCV to continue spreading through vulnerable populations, as opposed to eradicating the disease altogether.” This, she says, “results in massive public harm.” Healey further contends that Gilead has “enjoyed staggering profits” from sales of the drugs, citing a recent U.S. Senate Committee on Finance report claiming that Gilead pursued an aggressive pricing strategy for the drugs that netted the company $20.6 billion, after rebates, in the first 21 months that they were on the market.

Gilead, which has defended its pricing based on savings to the health care system accrued through the drug’s cure of a disease, says it has requested a meeting with Healey to discuss its efforts to make the drug available to patients.

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