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An Australian doctor involved in a drug buyers’ club that has helped about 50 Otago people access life-saving medicine took a shot at pharmaceutical companies at a gathering in Dunedin last night.
Tasmanian Dr James Freeman said pharmaceutical companies had been “having a lend” of the public purse through their pricing of drugs.
Dr Freeman was in Dunedin for a “hepster hui” in Northeast Valley last night to celebrate a cure for the potentially fatal hepatitis C virus that attendees had accessed through the drug buyers’ club.
About 30 arrived at the home of resident Hazel Heal, including people from Australia, the North Island and the West Coast who had benefited from a generic version of recently developed life-saving drugs that cure more than 90% of those who use them.
Ms Heal bought drugs in Australia for $3800 about a year ago through Dr Freeman, which would have cost $84,000 in New Zealand.
In January she went public in the Otago Daily Times to urge others with the virus to take the option.
Dr Freeman set up the website FixHepC to source generic forms of the drug from India to provide them cheaper to patients.
Read more…https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/hep-c-drug-buyers%E2%80%99-club-doctor-hits-out