Portugal: Hepatitis C treatment 100% subsidised

Innovative drug, Sofosbuvir, to treat hepatitis C is 100% subsidised in Portugal since Tuesday evening and will be given to all patients who need it.

Eurico Castro Alves was speaking at the end of a meeting with the administrators of all hospital that treat hepatitis C in Portugal, Infarmed and the secretary of state of health.

Alves said that an agreement had been signed with the laboratory that makes Sofosbuvir and the drug is now 100% state subsidised.

The Infarmed chairman said that all patients who needed the treatment would receive the drug and added that there are currently 602 receiving Sofosbuvir.

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Portugal: Portugal agrees to treat 13,000 hepatitis C patients

LISBON, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Portuguese government has agreed to treat up to 13,000 people infected with hepatitis C in the next three years, Portuguese Minister of Health Paulo Macedo said on Friday.

"We will be able to treat more sufferers in a fairer way. We will open way to initiate the eradication, the elimination of the disease," he told a press conference.

He said that the government would pay every treatment undertaken by sufferers of hepatitis C.

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Portugal: Gov't reaches deal for Hepatitis C drug

The Portuguese government has finally reached an agreement with an American pharmaceutical firm to bring an innovative drug to treat Hepatitis C to Portugal. 

The deal comes one year after the drug from Gilead Sciences reached Europe.

According to reports the Ministry of Health and national drugs watchdog Infarmed managed to negotiated a price that will enable more patients to be treated for less than €25,000 per treatment.

Newspaper Público reports that the plan is to treat between 10,000 and 12,000 patients with the new drug over the next three years.

Source: http://theportugalnews.com/news/govt-reaches-deal-for-hepatitis-c-drug/33932