1. By Robert Hindes MD

2.  Extensively involved in research on the treatment of
Hepatitis C (HCV), Robert Hindes, MD, serves as the chief
medical officer of Trek Therapeutics, a B (benefit)
corporation that he cofounded. Robert Hindes, MD, and his
team at Trek Therapeutics are developing novel, affordable
therapies for curing HCV.
The cost of existing HCV therapies has generated
significant controversy in recent years. Gilead Science,
which offers the leading curative regimen, priced its drug
Sofosbuvir at $1,000 per pill. A single course of treatment
with Sofosbuvir costs $84,000. That cost covers only one
drug that may be part of a larger curative regimen. For
patients treated in one New York City hospital, the cost of
a cure averaged more than $171,000.

3.  Kian Bichoupan, PhD, of Mount Sinai Icahn
School of Medicine has pointed out that this
cost, overwhelming as it is, is still lower in
total than the cost of treatment with earlier
HCV regimens, since the newer drugs have
such a higher rate of successful outcomes.
Thus, while the individual cost of treatment
may be higher, the per-cure cost is actually
lower because more patients actually reach a
point where the HCV becomes undetectable.

4.  While Bichoupan makes a valid point, the cost of
treatment is still prohibitive for many people in
the United States, and makes paying for curative
treatments extremely difficult in developing
nations, where they are desperately needed. In
the United States, most insurance companies
have developed algorithms which prioritize
treatments for patients with more advanced liver
disease, leaving the majority of HCV infected
patients without access to the marketed
regimens from Gilead and Abbvie.