Incepta Pharmaceuticals has brought a generic version of the drug Sovaldi, of the Gilead Sciences, which is being used in treatment of hepatitis C, is a very popular drug. The generic version of the drug will be sold at a price of $10.
The generic drug of Sovaldi is named as Hopetavir and the cost of the drug for a period of 12 weeks will be $900. Cost of Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Sovaldi is very high. "Gilead is aware of unauthorized generic versions of sofosbuvir being offered in the marketplace .We're focused on enabling our eleven Indian generic partners to launch their authorized generic versions as soon as possible", the company said in an e-mail.
So far, it was the most successful drug for treating hepatitis C. And the cost of this drug for a period of twelve weeks was $86,000.
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Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Hepatitis Pills Contributed to 13 Percent Spike in Drug Spending
Costly new hepatitis pills helped drove a 13 percent increase in drug spending last year among insurer-managed plans in the United States, a rate not seen in more than a decade, according to a report from the pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts.
A course of therapy to treat the liver-damaging hepatitis C virus could cost as much as $150,000 with the approvals of medicines such as Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Sovaldi and Harvoni and Johnson & Johnson’s Olysio, Express Scripts said in the report, released Tuesday. Driven as well by higher costs of specialty and compounded medicines, the estimated drug spend in general for each person in commercial-insured plans was $980 in 2014.
The new hepatitis C medicines are particularly challenging for government health plans and programs.
Re-infection due to ongoing risk probably the cause of HCV recurrence after SVR
Rates of hepatitis C virus (HCV) reoccurrence after successful therapy differ markedly between risk groups, according to the results of a meta-analysis presented at the recent Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
At one end of the spectrum, over a fifth of patients with HIV co-infection who cleared HCV infection with treatment experienced a recurrence of the infection. This compared to a rate just 1% in patients with no HCV risk factors. The UK investigators leading the study believe these large differences point to re-infection rather than relapse being the cause of the re-emergence of HCV after treatment response.
HCV infection is an increasingly important cause of liver-related illness and death around the world. Diagnosing and treating HCV is therefore a global health priority, especially as therapy with combinations of new direct-acting anti-HCV drugs can achieve a cure or sustained virological response (SVR) – absence of HCV RNA 24 weeks after the completion of therapy – in up to 90% of patients.
Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) and AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) Trying to Make the Most from Market Share
Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) share prices are dropping as a result of the FDA giving the approval to AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) of its hepatitis C drug, Viekira Pak. Through drastic price cuts, Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) is facing a tough time trying to become market leader. Both companies have confirmed that the price reductions are so that they can attract more customers yet investors may not consider this a positive sign.
After Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) launched Sovaldi, its drug for oral hepatitis C, it revolutionized the treatment. Before this, patients of hepatitis C had to be treatment with cures that had significant side effects like ribavirin and peg interferon that lasted nearly 48 weeks and had only 50%-80% cure rates.
However, Sovaldi’s treatment doesn’t eliminate ribavirin from the core, but it does put aside peg interferon and gives cure rates of 90%. This is why doctors embraced the drug with open arms and turned it into the quickest drug to achieve such successful levels of treatment. It made nearly $10.3 billion sales in the previous year. However, Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) strengthened its drug back in October, when it won the approval by the FDA for its drug Harvoni.
Dubai-New oral drug can cure hepatitis C
Dubai: In what is being hailed by health practitioners as one of the biggest discoveries in five decades in the field of medicine, an international pharmaceutical company has discovered a powerful antiviral drug to treat the deadly disease hepatitis C that will soon be available in the UAE.
Experts in the medical field reacted with excitement at this breakthrough development. “We are very excited and thrilled by this discovery which has far-reaching implications,” said a senior doctor from a leading hospital group in Dubai. ”The mechanism by which this oral drug eliminates the virus in the affected population could hold the key to similar anti-viral medication to eliminate many viral diseases such as other forms of hepatitis, Ebola and, one day, even HIV.”
Dr Chacko George, specialist in Internal Medicine at RAK Hospital, said: “In the case of hepatitis C, 20-30 per cent of the people recover and about the same percentage get chronic liver disease or become carriers and even suffer from cancer. If there is an antiviral drug that can eliminate the virus in about 97 per cent of the first-timers and 93 per cent of those treated earlier, then it is one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of treatment of this disease. This would mean that with this treatment, the infected person will be able to maintain an infection-free state or have such weak copies of the virus which won’t be able to replicate. It would mean a tremendous advancement in the treatment of the disease. It is discoveries like these that keep our medical appetite for discoveries alive.”
Future Treatment May Be Best for Kids with Hepatitis C
The best time to treat children infected with the hepatitis C virus may be off in the future when newer, better drugs with fewer side effects are expected to be approved for pediatric populations, according to the authors of a recent article in Clinical Liver Disease.
Hepatitis C is a bloodborne virus that over time if left unchecked can severely damage the liver. But for children who are chronically infected, progression to advanced liver disease during their childhood years is uncommon, says lead author Christine Lee, MD.
A major milestone in the treatment of hepatitis C is the recent development of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) agents and combination drug regimens, Lee stated in the article. These developments are likely to similarly revolutionize treatment of the virus in children in the near future however clinical trials are still being conducted.
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Hepatitis C is a bloodborne virus that over time if left unchecked can severely damage the liver. But for children who are chronically infected, progression to advanced liver disease during their childhood years is uncommon, says lead author Christine Lee, MD.
A major milestone in the treatment of hepatitis C is the recent development of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) agents and combination drug regimens, Lee stated in the article. These developments are likely to similarly revolutionize treatment of the virus in children in the near future however clinical trials are still being conducted.
Read more...
Sydney-Benitec Biopharma Doses Fourth Patient In Hepatitis C Trial
Benitec Biopharma (ASX: BLT; OTCPK: BTEBY), a biopharmaceutical company focused on providing potentially curative therapies with its proprietary gene-silencing technology called ddRNAi or "expressed RNAi," today announced that the fourth patient in the company's Phase I/IIa dose escalation clinical trial of its lead program TT-034 for treating hepatitis C was dosed at the Duke Clinical Research Unit. This is the second patient to be dosed in Cohort Two, with the third and final patient in Cohort Two well advanced in their preparation for dosing.
As previously announced, the parallel dosing of these patients follows a positive recommendation from the DSMB's review of the safety data from the first patient in this cohort.
All three patients in Cohort Two receive a dose of 1.25 x 10^11 vg/kg of TT-034, a concentration that is a half-log higher than the dose administered in Cohort One. This dose level is still below the concentration expected to inhibit hepatitis C viral replication and therefore data from Cohort Two are expected to serve primarily as a further safety assessment.
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