New hope for Hepatitis C patients

There is good news for people affected by Hepatitis C. New medicines have been approved  by the US and European regulatory authorities. The medicines are supposed to be more effective and with less side effects than currently available medicines. 

One medicine-sofosbuvir, made by Gilead biotechnology company is sold at US$ 85,000 per course or around $1,000/day in the US and Europe. However out of the estimated 180 million people infected by Hepatitis C, the majority live in developing countries. Egypt hosts the majority of those infected. 

The high price is alarming public health advocates as we see the same story with HIV medicines unfolding in front of us. Decade or two ago, the price of anti-HIV medicines were US$ 10,000-15,0000/patient/year. At that level, it was not possible for patients, nor their governments and not even donors to think about universal access to treatment. people were left to die.

It was thanks to global public campaign and generic competition from Indian companies that the price of anti-HIV medicines is down to about $ 100/patient /year. Thus there is now about 8 million people on treatment. 

In the case of Hepatitis C, there are a number of hopeful signs:

1. Gilead is already in negotiation with a number of good quality Indian generics to produce the medicines and sell it at $2500/course. The talk is about allowing this price in India and in 60 other countries
2. An Indian NGO (I-MAK) has filed a pre-grant patent opposition to sofosbuvir. This mechanism is allowed under Indian law (and under TRIPS) whereby any interested party can file a case against granting a patent before the company file a patent or before the patent office grant one. This mechanism was successfully used with other medicines in India
3. In addition a group of NGOs, are trying to get UNITAID to intervene in the market as it did on HIV medicines. UNITAID is the multilateral organisation that does market interventions to make drugs available and affordable for HIV, TB, malaria (http://www.unitaid.eu/en/)

These actions mean that:

1. Indian generics will soon be manufacturing the medicine 
2. The medicine will be available at a cheaper price in India and probably Sub Sahara Africa

What about Egypt?