Kaiser Health News (10/29) reports that many
patients with hepatitis C “whose livers aren’t yet significantly damaged by the
viral infection” are not sick enough to qualify for expensive new drugs. With a
cost per patient of about $95,000 for a 12-week course of treatment, “many
public and private insurers are restricting access to those who already have
serious liver damage.” Additionally, many state Medicaid programs require that
patients be drug and alcohol free for a certain time period before they can get
the hepatitis C treatments. The article notes two hepatitis C drugs, Sovaldi
(sofosbuvir) and Harvoni (ledipasvir-sofosbuvir), were recently approved by the
FDA.
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