New medicine New hope for Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)
Gilead drug company acquired the US-FDA approval for Sofosbuvir to be used to treat HCV. This is an oral treatment which is more effective, has less side effects and is used for shorter duration than the current medicines (Interferon). However the drug is expected to be priced at $80,000/patient in the US. Yet studies show that it can be priced at only $100-200
Therefore even if the company decided to use tiered pricing for developing countries at-even- 10% of the US price, the medicine would be still very expensive ($8,000) for thsoe countries. The WHO estimates that there are 150 million people infected with HCV. The majority of infection is in Egypt where it is estimated that 20% of the population are infected by the virus.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs164/en/index.html
The disease leads to liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.
In India, NGOs have already filed for pre-grant opposition in the court. This is a good use of the India law of Intellectual Property Rights which allows people to oppose granting a patent even before a company/person file for a patent application. It may be that the Egyptian law does not allow for such public health safeguard. However, the government can issue compulsory licensing which allows generic companies to produce the medicine legally at an inexpensive price.
Given that it is likely that reputable, quality Indian generics could make the medicine for Indian market, it would be in Egypt favour to negotiate importing the medicine from these companies.
What are the plans of the ministry of health in Egypt?
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