Hepatitis Cure, Sofosbuvir, Turns 5 Years Old: The Vast Majority of People Still Have Not Been Treated
People living with hepatitis C, access to medicines activists, and the medical community around the world “mark” the fifth birthday of the first all-oral, one dose per day cure sofosbuvir (Sovaldi®), launched by Gilead Sciences. A global hepatitis C coalition has released a fact sheet revealing treatment barriers that resulted in only 1.85 million of the 71 million people worldwide who need treatment, receiving Gilead’s sofosbuvir-based drugs, largely due to pricing, patents and registration delays.
Since 2013, Gilead reaped US$58.6 billion in hepatitis C product sales, of which 25.8 billion are estimated profit1, with a fraction of these earnings invested in research and development. Instead, in 2017 alone, Gilead spent US$14.8 billion rewarding shareholders. This amount is more than sufficient to treat everyone with chronic hepatitis C with generic versions.
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