The Week in Review: Feb 17, 2017 – Feb 24, 2017

This page is an archive. Its content may no longer be accurate and was last updated on the original publication date. It is intended for reference and as a historical record only. For hep C questions, call Help4Hep BC at 1-888-411-7578.

weekly_bull_sm

Friday, February 24, 2017

News Recap

Better Public Access to New HepC Meds Announced in Canada
This week the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA), on behalf of participating federal, provincial and territorial public drug plans, concluded successful negotiations with three drug manufacturers to help jurisdictions expand access to publicly funded medications for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C.

What this Means: Immediately following this announcement there was a flurry of press releases from the BC and Ontario governments and from Gilead and Merck. The upshot is that a broad spectrum of new hepatitis C medications have been approved by BC PharmaCare and the Ontario Drug Benefit Program (ODB):

  • Ontario promised to extend coverage to all hepatitis C patients within the next 12 months (as of Feb 28), regardless of the severity of their liver disease: “Ontario will expand access to include patients with less advanced disease (fibrosis scores of F0 or F1) if they have been diagnosed with certain co-existing factors. All HCV patients with fibrosis scores of F2 or higher also remain eligible for reimbursement.”
  • In BC, however, although PharmaCare is expanding the criteria to provide coverage to more patients living with hepatitis C in 2017, coverage for any British Columbian living with chronic hepatitis C, regardless of the type or severity of their disease will only start in 2018 – 2019. Physicians can apply for coverage of the new drugs on behalf of their patients on or around March 21, 2017.
  • It is too early to say how many other provinces will follow the lead of B.C. and Ontario, the two provinces that led the hepatitis C pricing negotiations on behalf of the pCPA. Whenever the pCPA concludes a deal for undisclosed price reductions, each province still has to decide how to implement the changes to its own public drug plan.

Agreements with the pCPA were reached with Gilead Sciences Canada, Merck Canada, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada to provide several hepatitis C drugs at an improved cost:

  • Daklinza (daclatasvir) – new
  • Epclusa (sofosbuvir/velpatasvir) – new
  • Harvoni (ledipasvir/sofosbuvir)
  • Sovaldi (sofosbuvir)
  • Sunvepra (asunaprevir) – new
  • Zepatier (elbasvir/grazoprevir) – new

Take Away Message: It is very difficult to make sense of what exactly “expanded access,” and “public access” mean. I would very much like it to mean “free,” but I doubt that that’s what it means.  The provinces may have gotten a really good deal (which they won’t disclose) but these drugs are very expensive!  However, we do note that BC PharmaCare treated about 3,800 people for HepC in 2015 – 2016 (up from 1,200 people in 2013 -2014) and Ontario (ODB) treated more than 3,700 people in 2015 – 2016.  So, with reduced prices then we can expected even more people to be treated.  But we do not know how many – and believe me I’ve been asking.  So as soon as we find out more we will let you know!

86-90 Class Action News Update
The Administrator has begun processing the payments approved by the Court Orders.  Given the large number of HCV Special Distribution Benefits payments to be made, payments need to be made over time in 3 stages. Read more here: http://hepcbc.bchep.org/2017/02/23/new-update-86-90-class-action-feb-23-2017/

In Other News:
Italy has finally thrown down the shoe!  Fed up with Gilead’s refusal to lower its prices, the Italian Parliament has issued an ultimatum to Gilead: Lower the price to €4,000 per treatment or we will start producing the drugs ourselves!!  Hooey!! I really want to see this play out!!! Go Italy Go!!!

Last Word:
A very interesting study was presented at CROI 2017 which found that HCV screening shouldn’t just focus on at-risk populations, in this case Baby Boomers.  What the researchers found was that “about 50% of those participants in the age clusters of 46 to 50 and 71 to 75 tested positive.” The authors concluded, “Testing non-[baby boomer] patients only on the basis of risk factors has the potential to miss a significant number of hepatitis C Ab+ patients.”  http://hepcbc.bchep.org/2017/02/20/hcv-screening-shouldnt-just-focus-risk-populations/

More and more it is becoming obvious that there should be increased widespread screening of the general population for hepatitis C. See also: U.S.: Doctors, health officials want broad testing for hepatitis C.

Coming Up Next Week!

HepCBC will have Info booths at the following: