Hepatitis C Support Group
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne viral disease which can cause liver inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver cancer. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is spread by blood-to-blood contact with an infected person's blood. Many people with HCV infection have no symptoms and are unaware of the need to seek treatment. Hepatitis C infects an estimated 150-200 million people worldwide.
Express Scripts Pushes Price Competition for Gilead Drug - See more at: http://hepatitiscresearchandnewsupdates.blogspot.ca/2013/12/express-scripts-pushes-price.html#sthash.BucB6Db2.dpuf
Drat. I'm sorry.
And I am PISSED. Well, the deal is that ES is going to tell me that I can just do the current SOC of triple terror - my doc. will fight that one. But I will NOT do 24 weeks of Sovladi and Riba - no way - not as a cirrhotic geno 1... even if ES would pay for it (which they are pretty clearly saying they will not).
I put this in my Abbvie thread, but it really needs to be seen by those of us waiting for tx (I guess it just applies to us in the U.S.?) Read it and weep. Express Scripts has put its foot down - not gonna just roll over and pay the g-normous prices for Sovaldi - there's a new game in town now, and not a good one for us out here who need treatment and cannot get into trials. This really puts the kabosh on my hopes for off-label tx with Sovaldi and Olysio (I have ES as my PBM). Even if I WOULD do Sovaldi + Riba for 24 weeks, which I will NOT - ES isn't gonna pay for it without god knows what kind of fight with my doctor. Damn. DAMN. Finally we get Sovaldi - but... who's gonna pay for it? This will shake out eventually - like in a year or so whenever Abbvie is FDA approved; but for me, it most likely means another year of waiting, and for me, that is just flat out risky business. Sorry to bring on the doom. But it's the facts - reality.
AbbVie will be going to FDA 2nd Q of 2014 ..not that far off. chin up!
btw, I just called Express Scripts - they do NOT have Sovaldi! Huh? They DO have Olysio but not Sovaldi? That is kind of strange - unless ES is putting a "hold" on Sovaldi given its new "price war."
This little blurb (below) means that for us geno 1's who don't want to do the "???" 24 week Sovaldi + Riba, Abbvie is ahead of Gilead in the race to FDA approved Geno 1 tx with no Interferon (my bolding). I mean, the "results" are so close, and of course, they can't be taken as "gold" - so yes, Abbvie works just as well as Gilead.
"ABBVIE released results today from a FINAL STAGE TRIAL of 394 previously treated hepatitis C patients showing that its treatment cleared all signs of the virus in 96 percent of patients. In the SECOND OF THREE STUDIES generally needed for U.S. approval, GILEAD'ss one-pill, two-drug treatment showed viral clearance rates of 95 percent to 100 percent."
I do believe you got it right - Abbvie is going to come in under the Gilead price tag, and that will be that! That's what our insurer's will fund.
Okay - what are we gonna do for another year, Kramer? Hang out here and chat, I guess. :)