The
tougher challenge, discussed at a closing day session led by the World
Health Organization is finding a way to step up testing. “Treating patients is not difficult; finding them is,” Peck said, "You
can't treat what you haven't found."
Despite
the wealth of choices physicians have in finding drugs to treat
hepatitis C infection, two challenges remain in eradicating the
disease—drug price and lack of global screening for the virus.
“Price is solvable,” said Markus Peck, MD, the outgoing secretary of the
European Society for the Study of the Liver (EASL) interviewed at the
International Liver Congress in Vienna, Austria.
“Pharma has to make some money on these drugs,” Peck said, since their
cost of developing them has been high, “but as there is more competition
we are quite sure the price will go down.”
There are currently 7 different classifications of drugs that fight
hepatitis C. Those are nucleoside and nucleotide NS5B polymerase
inhibitors, nucleoside analogs, protease inhibitors, nucleoside analogs,
pegylated interferon, NS5A inhibitors, non-nucleoside NS5B inhibitors,
and combination drugs that draw on two or more of those classes.
Not counting interferon, there are also 7 drugs or drug combos approved
by the US Food and Drug Administration and another 14 in phase 3 drug
trials.
- See more at:
http://www.hcplive.com/conference-coverage/easl-2015/Hepatitis-C-Price-Lack-of-Testing-are-Challenges#sthash.ggeNy7xf.dpufLabels: drug pricing, EASL 2015, Global testing, Screening