The new FDA approved Hep c drug that costs $1,125 per pill.

[cali]

one a day. Fuckwads.

Federal health officials have approved a daily pill that can cure the most common form of hepatitis C without the grueling pill-and-injection cocktail long used to treat the virus.

But the drug's $1,125-per-pill price is sure to increase criticism of drugmaker Gilead Sciences, whose pricing strategy for an older hepatitis drug has already drawn scorn from patient groups, insurers and politicians worldwide.

The Food and Drug Administration said Friday it cleared Gilead's Harvoni combination pill for patients with genotype 1 of hepatitis C, a form of the liver-destroying virus that accounts for 70 percent of the estimated 3.2 million cases in the U.S. For the first time ever these patients will not have to take a decades-old combination of antiviral pills and shots that causes flu-like side effects.

The new pill combines Gilead's blockbuster Sovaldi, approved last December, with a new antiviral drug called ledipasvir, which attacks the virus using a different mechanism. The dual-acting approach mimics drug combinations Gilead has long used to treat HIV.

<snip>

"When history is written, this is going to be the breaking point where drug prices went completely out of control and nobody did anything about it," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Never before has a drug been priced at this level for such a large population." About 25 percent of people with HIV infection are also infected with hepatitis C.

<snip>

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-approves-harvoni-1125-a-pill-hepatitis-c-drug/

[smokey nj]

1. How do they live with themselves?

[cali]

2. alas, with ease.

[smokey nj]

4. I wonder what it's like to not have a conscience.

My nephew has Hep C. I don't think there's any way he'll have access to this medication based on the cost.

[Crunchy Frog]

3. Time to nationalize the drug companies? n/t