The pharmaceutical giant is all set to provide justification of its high priced drugs.
Over the high price of its ground-breaking drug for Hepatitis C treatment; Sovaldi and Harvoni, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey threatens to sue the American biggest pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences Inc., claimed in a letter made public on Wednesday, January 27, 2016. Ms. Hailey puts forward her argument by stating that the company has violated the state Consumer Protection Act on unfair trade practices. However, the onus of proving that the high price is unfair or how high is too high rests with the attorney.
The attorney further carried on by stating that due to its high cost not everybody could get access to the drug which is essential in treating chronic Hepatitis C. She further stated that the cost of the drug is heavy burden on prison program and state Medicaid which care for large number of patients suffering from such disease.
According to Journal, in the letter forwarded to the company the attorney wrote: “At a minimum, Gilead Sciences should consider innovative approaches to pricing and payment that would expand access to Sovaldi and Harvoni in the United States, as it has done in other countries.”
The Harvoni drug has a list price of $1,125 per pill while a full course treatment using the drug costs about $94,500 whereas course of treatment with Sovaldi has accumulated cost of $84,000 around $1,000 per pill. In the year 2015’s first nine months, the company scored a sale of $10.1 billion in sales in the U.S. of the two drugs.
According to Journal, around 200,000 people in Massachusetts suffer from Hepatitis C. The HCV can cause serious infections which can cause death of a person. Ever since the Californian based company introduced its hallmark in the medicine industry Sovaldi in 2013, it has credited a lot of criticism to its account. A year later, the company introduced Harvoni, a pill which combines with the former in a lot of treatments. Likewise, due to their high costs, medical insurances don’t cover their costs.
Earlier in 2015, the company has encountered a similar situation when it had a lawsuit lodged against it in Pennsylvania federal court. The court ruled out that the state law couldn’t be used to force the company to dismiss its profit from the sale of its patented drug by lowering the price.
An associate professor at Boston College Law School, Dean Hashimoto said that a lawsuit which requires the company to lower its price in compliance with state’s consumer protection law would be odd. He said that usually in Massachusetts companies are sued over deceptive advertisings. Moreover, Mr. Hashimoto has also expressed that a lawsuit can prompt the company to say lowering the price for the prisons of the state.
The company has contacted with the attorney to have a detailed discussion on the topic so that company could provide justifications of the pricing. Attorney general spokeswoman has said that she was confident that the matter will be solved without having the company to go to court.
In 2015, the company projected that it would negotiate discounts of around 46% for Medicaid. Under the federal law, the companies are required to sell to the federal programs for poor like Medicaid at a price less than 25% of the retail price. One of the spokeswomen from Gilead has said that the Department of Veteran Affairs and Medicaid receive 50% or more discounts on Harvoni. .
However, in the complaint lodged by the state, the officials have argued that they couldn’t treat many patients just because of the high prices. According to the letter, Ms. Healey demands increased access to the new treatments.
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