VA rationing new hepatitis C drug to treat Agent Orange Vietnam Veterans

Sky-high price has VA rationing new hepatitis C drug
Jacksonville Daily News
December 26, 2014

Senator Bernie Sanders

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., used one of his last hearings as chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee to review how VA has had to ration a break-through medicine that cures hepatitis C, a liver virus infecting 174,000 veterans, because a course of treatment — 84 pills over 12 weeks —- costs VA almost $50,000 per patient.

Sanders said the biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, Inc., of Foster City, Calif., stands to earn more than $200 billion on a new drug called Sovaldi. When combined with still toxic antiviral medicines including interferon injections, Sovaldi cures hepatitis C at a 90 percent rate, and does so faster and with fewer side effects than past drug regimens.

That a cure has been found is good news, Sanders said, especially for veterans who are infected with hepatitis C at three times the rate of the general population. Vietnam War-era vets are hit particularly hard because of battlefield blood exposure, non-sterile vaccination routines, wartime sharing of razors, drug abuse and recruit demographics from the last draft era.

What’s disturbing and “astounding,” Sanders said, are pill prices set by Gilead. VA has budgeted $1.3 billion to buy Sovaldi over the next two years to treat mostly patients with advance liver disease or liver cancer, said Michael Valentino, chief consultant for VA Pharmacy Benefits Management Services.

There’s money enough for 25,000 to 30,000 patients, he said.
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