Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > It Costs $84,000 to Cure Hepatitis C Through U.S. Insurance: I Did It
for $1,500 Ordering the Same Drug From India
________________________________________
It Costs $84,000 to Cure Hepatitis C Through U.S. Insurance: I Did It for
$1,500 Ordering the Same Drug From India
By Phillip Smith [1] / AlterNet [2]
May 5, 2016
When I went in for my annual physical in 2011, I knew something was up when
the physician's assistant who usually dealt with me deferred to the actual
doctor. It was up to him to take on more serious issues, and as he soon
explained, I had one. My blood work had come back showing I was infected
with the hepatitis C virus. Hep C is a serious, life-threatening illness
that attacks the liver and can result in fatty liver, cirrhotic liver and
liver cancer. One out of five people carrying the hep C virus will die of
liver disease within 20 years. And a lot of people have it-at least 3
million, and perhaps as many as 7 million, in the United States alone.
When I was diagnosed five years ago, there was no effective cure. The
interferon-based treatments weren't successful half the time, and the side
effects were so debilitating few patients could endure the months-long
punishing protocol. But hope was on the horizon. Pharmaceutical companies
were working frantically to create new hep C drugs that were more effective,
with fewer nasty side effects. Gilead Science was first out the gate,
bringing the new hep C drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi to market in 2014 and 2015,
respectively. And they worked great: More than 90 percent of patients taking
the new drugs saw the hep C virus wiped out in three months, and without the
side effects that made interferon treatments so intolerable.
But there was one big problem: Gilead wants $1,000 a pill for the 12-week
treatment, or $84,000 for Harvoni and only slightly less for Sovaldi. In the
United States, there is nothing stopping pharmaceutical companies from
charging whatever they think the market will bear. Martin Skreli, the
infamous "Pharma Bro," may be the poster child for pharmaceutical
price-gouging, but the executives at Gilead certainly deserve at least a
(dis)honorable mention. Gilead has grown fat off of hep C drug profits,
generating billions in sales each quarter and sitting on a $26 billion pile
of cash [3] at the end of last year, with hepatitis C sufferers, insurance
companies and state Medicaid plains generating the wealth of Croesus for the
company.
For me, as for millions of others, buying the pills was financially out of
the question. My Affordable Care Act insurance plan would, for a time, cover
the treatment-but only if my liver were already diseased. In other words, I
had to let the disease progress to the point that it actually threatened my
life before the insurance company would pay to treat the disease. (Just last
month, under pressure from the state government, seven New York state
insurance companies [4] agreed to cover the drugs for all hepatitis C
patients, not just those with advanced liver disease.)
There was another problem: Because I had a low-premium, high-deductible
health insurance plan, even if my insurance company paid for the drugs, I
still faced $6,000 in out-of-pocket costs. But that was something of a moot
point, since my insurance company required I wait for my liver to be damaged
before it would pay a cent. So there I was, infected with a potentially
life-threatening virus, but unable to afford the drugs that could cure it.
It was not a happy place to be, and I was determined to find a solution. It
came from India.
Last year, Gilead entered into an agreement with India [5] that would allow
Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce generic versions of Harvoni
and Sovaldi and sell them in 101 developing countries at "a significantly
reduced flat price." The medicines are urgently needed in those countries,
where an estimated 103 million people have the hep C virus.
I did some internet sleuthing, found that Harvoni from Indian pharmaceutical
house Natco is sold as Hepcinat LP, and quickly discovered dozens of online
vendors ready, willing and eager to sell it to me. I made my inquiries in
the heady days of rollout last fall and got price quotes ranging from $500
to $2,500. I eventually decided to go with a company called Care Exim [6],
which offered the pills for $1,500. (The cost is significantly lower now. In
searches I made while writing this, some quotes were around $500 for the
complete course of treatment. Care Exim now says it can provide Hepcinat for
$1,050 for the full course of treatment.)
It felt kind of sketchy, however. I was dealing with unknown online drug
purveyors based on the other side of the planet. They didn't take credit
cards-payment took the form of a bank transfer-and didn't require a
prescription. They were happy to ship to the United States even though doing
so violated U.S. customs regulations and they were quick with assurances
that it would get through with "no problem." Was it a scam? Was I buying
counterfeit drugs? Those were the questions I weighed, balanced against the
possibility of being cured at a cost I could (barely) afford.
I paid my money and I took my chances. The package arrived in nine days,
untouched by customs. There were indeed three bottles of pills labeled as
Hepcinat LP manufactured by Natco, with seals and even a folded paper insert
with all the drug information on it. I took the pills for 83 days (saving
one for possible testing just in case), waited a couple of weeks, then went
to my doctor and had my blood drawn. The following week, he reported that my
hepatitis C viral load was now zero. I was cured.
I'm quite pleased about that, but the whole experience leaves me feeling
rather bilious about the U.S. health-care system in general and the role of
privately owned pharmaceutical companies in particular. I had health
insurance, yet it proved useless. Hell, I could have flown to India and
stayed for three months and taken the pills for less than what it would have
cost me to get Harvoni through my insurance company, if it would cover it at
all, if I waited for my liver to be damaged first.
And then there's Gilead. It didn't even develop Harvoni itself; it made a
business decision to pay $11 billion [7] to buy the company that did so it
could be first to market and reap the rewards, $26 billion worth. There is
something obscene about that. A billion-dollar profit would have been a very
respectable return on investment, but Gilead is getting much, much more than
that, and all the rest of us are paying for it, one way or another, whether
through higher insurance premiums, higher Medicaid costs, or like me, out of
their own pockets, just so Gilead's stockholders can see their dividends
double. If you buy Hepcinat from India, Gilead still makes a profit as part
of its licensing arrangement, but it doesn't make the unholy profits the
U.S. government allows it to get away with. And you save thousands of
dollars, and you get cured of hepatitis C.
Phillip Smith is editor of the AlterNet Drug Reporter and author of the Drug
War Chronicle.
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
[9]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/84000-hep-c-drug-only-1500
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/phillip-smith
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/23/3-things-to-watch-in-gilead
-sciences-incs-first-qu.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004
[4]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-insurers-to-change-coverage-of-hepatiti
s-c-drugs-1461636001
[5]
http://www.gilead.com/~/media/files/pdfs/other/hcv%20generic%20agreement%20f
ast%20facts%2072815.pdf
[6] http://www.buygenericdrugonline.com/search.html?ss=Hepcinat%20LP
[7]
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&am
p;ie=UTF-8#q=buy+harvoni+india
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on It Costs $84,000 to Cure
Hepatitis C Through U.S. Insurance: I Did It for $1,500 Ordering the Same
Drug From India
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > It Costs $84,000 to Cure Hepatitis C Through U.S. Insurance: I Did It
for $1,500 Ordering the Same Drug From India
It Costs $84,000 to Cure Hepatitis C Through U.S. Insurance: I Did It for
$1,500 Ordering the Same Drug From India
By Phillip Smith [1] / AlterNet [2]
May 5, 2016
When I went in for my annual physical in 2011, I knew something was up when
the physician's assistant who usually dealt with me deferred to the actual
doctor. It was up to him to take on more serious issues, and as he soon
explained, I had one. My blood work had come back showing I was infected
with the hepatitis C virus. Hep C is a serious, life-threatening illness
that attacks the liver and can result in fatty liver, cirrhotic liver and
liver cancer. One out of five people carrying the hep C virus will die of
liver disease within 20 years. And a lot of people have it-at least 3
million, and perhaps as many as 7 million, in the United States alone.
When I was diagnosed five years ago, there was no effective cure. The
interferon-based treatments weren't successful half the time, and the side
effects were so debilitating few patients could endure the months-long
punishing protocol. But hope was on the horizon. Pharmaceutical companies
were working frantically to create new hep C drugs that were more effective,
with fewer nasty side effects. Gilead Science was first out the gate,
bringing the new hep C drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi to market in 2014 and 2015,
respectively. And they worked great: More than 90 percent of patients taking
the new drugs saw the hep C virus wiped out in three months, and without the
side effects that made interferon treatments so intolerable.
But there was one big problem: Gilead wants $1,000 a pill for the 12-week
treatment, or $84,000 for Harvoni and only slightly less for Sovaldi. In the
United States, there is nothing stopping pharmaceutical companies from
charging whatever they think the market will bear. Martin Skreli, the
infamous "Pharma Bro," may be the poster child for pharmaceutical
price-gouging, but the executives at Gilead certainly deserve at least a
(dis)honorable mention. Gilead has grown fat off of hep C drug profits,
generating billions in sales each quarter and sitting on a $26 billion pile
of cash [3] at the end of last year, with hepatitis C sufferers, insurance
companies and state Medicaid plains generating the wealth of Croesus for the
company.
For me, as for millions of others, buying the pills was financially out of
the question. My Affordable Care Act insurance plan would, for a time, cover
the treatment-but only if my liver were already diseased. In other words, I
had to let the disease progress to the point that it actually threatened my
life before the insurance company would pay to treat the disease. (Just last
month, under pressure from the state government, seven New York state
insurance companies [4] agreed to cover the drugs for all hepatitis C
patients, not just those with advanced liver disease.)
There was another problem: Because I had a low-premium, high-deductible
health insurance plan, even if my insurance company paid for the drugs, I
still faced $6,000 in out-of-pocket costs. But that was something of a moot
point, since my insurance company required I wait for my liver to be damaged
before it would pay a cent. So there I was, infected with a potentially
life-threatening virus, but unable to afford the drugs that could cure it.
It was not a happy place to be, and I was determined to find a solution. It
came from India.
Last year, Gilead entered into an agreement with India [5] that would allow
Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce generic versions of Harvoni
and Sovaldi and sell them in 101 developing countries at "a significantly
reduced flat price." The medicines are urgently needed in those countries,
where an estimated 103 million people have the hep C virus.
I did some internet sleuthing, found that Harvoni from Indian pharmaceutical
house Natco is sold as Hepcinat LP, and quickly discovered dozens of online
vendors ready, willing and eager to sell it to me. I made my inquiries in
the heady days of rollout last fall and got price quotes ranging from $500
to $2,500. I eventually decided to go with a company called Care Exim [6],
which offered the pills for $1,500. (The cost is significantly lower now. In
searches I made while writing this, some quotes were around $500 for the
complete course of treatment. Care Exim now says it can provide Hepcinat for
$1,050 for the full course of treatment.)
It felt kind of sketchy, however. I was dealing with unknown online drug
purveyors based on the other side of the planet. They didn't take credit
cards-payment took the form of a bank transfer-and didn't require a
prescription. They were happy to ship to the United States even though doing
so violated U.S. customs regulations and they were quick with assurances
that it would get through with "no problem." Was it a scam? Was I buying
counterfeit drugs? Those were the questions I weighed, balanced against the
possibility of being cured at a cost I could (barely) afford.
I paid my money and I took my chances. The package arrived in nine days,
untouched by customs. There were indeed three bottles of pills labeled as
Hepcinat LP manufactured by Natco, with seals and even a folded paper insert
with all the drug information on it. I took the pills for 83 days (saving
one for possible testing just in case), waited a couple of weeks, then went
to my doctor and had my blood drawn. The following week, he reported that my
hepatitis C viral load was now zero. I was cured.
I'm quite pleased about that, but the whole experience leaves me feeling
rather bilious about the U.S. health-care system in general and the role of
privately owned pharmaceutical companies in particular. I had health
insurance, yet it proved useless. Hell, I could have flown to India and
stayed for three months and taken the pills for less than what it would have
cost me to get Harvoni through my insurance company, if it would cover it at
all, if I waited for my liver to be damaged first.
And then there's Gilead. It didn't even develop Harvoni itself; it made a
business decision to pay $11 billion [7] to buy the company that did so it
could be first to market and reap the rewards, $26 billion worth. There is
something obscene about that. A billion-dollar profit would have been a very
respectable return on investment, but Gilead is getting much, much more than
that, and all the rest of us are paying for it, one way or another, whether
through higher insurance premiums, higher Medicaid costs, or like me, out of
their own pockets, just so Gilead's stockholders can see their dividends
double. If you buy Hepcinat from India, Gilead still makes a profit as part
of its licensing arrangement, but it doesn't make the unholy profits the
U.S. government allows it to get away with. And you save thousands of
dollars, and you get cured of hepatitis C.
Phillip Smith is editor of the AlterNet Drug Reporter and author of the Drug
War Chronicle.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[9]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/84000-hep-c-drug-only-1500 ;
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/phillip-smith
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/23/3-things-to-watch-in-gilead
-sciences-incs-first-qu.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004
[4]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-insurers-to-change-coverage-of-hepatiti
s-c-drugs-1461636001
[5]
http://www.gilead.com/~/media/files/pdfs/other/hcv%20generic%20agreement%20f
ast%20facts%2072815.pdf
[6] http://www.buygenericdrugonline.com/search.html?ss=Hepcinat%20LP
[7]
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&am
p;ie=UTF-8#q=buy+harvoni+india
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on It Costs $84,000 to Cure
Hepatitis C Through U.S. Insurance: I Did It for $1,500 Ordering the Same
Drug From India
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
