American patients with hepatitis C will be available branded generics Gilead

On Monday, September 24, the American biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc. said that it expects to launch in the US the production of a number of analogues for its own products. Among the applicants for the release are generic drugs for the treatment of hepatitis C Epclusa (sofosbuvir / velpatasvir) and Harvoni (ledipasvir / sofosbuvir).

Medicines will be produced by the subsidiary structure of Gilead, the company Asegua Therapeutics LLC. As expected, the cost of treatment with new drugs that will appear in the US in 2019, will be $ 24 thousand.

According to the International Coalition for Preparedness for Treatment (ITPCru) with reference to Bloomberg, the decision to launch the production of its own line of generics was made by Gilead after the approval of the FDA of the analogue of Teva's costly EpiPen epinephrine autoinjector.

We add that, according to the representatives of Gilead, while the newest combinations for the treatment of hepatitis C were in market circulation (Harvoni - from 2014, Epclusa - since 2016), their average price for purchases by the state and insurers decreased by almost 60% (at the start of sales $ 94.5 thousand and $ 74.76 thousand per course, respectively).

Nevertheless, the company said, "because of the complexity of the structure of the US healthcare system, these discounts [...] do not always mean a low price for the patient."