Revolutionary hepatitis C drugs leave public health systems reeling

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They’ve brought hope to millions, drugs so revolutionary that they can cure hepatitis C and so expensive that neither patients nor public health services can afford them—an issue to be raised at this week’s G7.

The pills made by US group Gilead Sciences are just one example of efficient yet costly treatments that have put the delicate question of how much a life is worth on the table of cash-strapped governments which hesitate to fund them.

In Spain, after multiple protests that included the three-month occupation of a Madrid hospital, patients were handed a partial victory last year when the government decided to provide the drugs to those at advanced stages of the disease.

So far, nearly 52,000 people have been treated out of 472,000 virus carriers.

‘Shock for health spending’

But according to Spain’s Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro, that last-minute cost was in part responsible for the country overshooting its public deficit target in 2015.

It’s a similar story in France, which paid out 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) between mid-2014 and June 2015 for innovative hepatitis C treatments for the worst affected, according to a report by its social security system.

It has just announced it will now cover the drugs for every patient.

Germany, meanwhile, disbursed 1.3 billion euros last year, and the debate over costly innovative treatments is such that the government is mulling a law on the issue.

“It’s a shock for health spending in many countries,” says Valerie Paris, a health policy expert at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

And a wake-up call for the world’s richest countries, says Yannis Natsis from the Brussels-based European Public Health Alliance of NGOs and non-profits.

“Before we didn’t have this debate, or just for Africa and AIDS,” he says.

Such is the problem that President Francois Hollande will raise the issue during the G7 gathering which kicks off Thursday in Japan, said a French diplomatic source who refused to be named.