A drug that has proven incredibly effective at treating hepatitis C is also proving to be a serious strain on state Medicaid budgets.
According to a recently released report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, 33 states combined to spend more than $1 billion in 2014 just on Sovaldi, a drug manufactured by Gilead Sciences.
The cost of a full 12-week treatment is $84,000, or $1,000 per daily pill. Although Gilead said earlier this year that it would give an average discount of 46 percent off its listed price, the cost is still far too high for most Medicaid programs to afford treatment for all of their enrollees.
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For all the money being spent, relatively few people are being treated. The Senate report found that only 2.4 percent of the 700,000 Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide had access to the drug in 2014.
New York State topped the spending list, doling out $360 million to treat roughly 4,000 of the 60,000 hepatitis C patients on its Medicaid rolls. Second was Pennsylvania, which spent $98 million to treat just over 1,000 of the state's 30,000 Medicaid beneficiaries suffering from the deadly liver disease.
Because of the high costs, many state Medicaid programs are limiting treatment to only the sickest patients, according to the report. Other states have imposed restrictions such as only offering the drug to patients who have abstained from alcohol or illegal drugs for a year, according to the New York Times.
Gilead, along with many other drug companies, is earning bipartisan condemnation on Capitol Hill for its pricing strategy.
"It was always Gilead's plan to maximize revenue, and affordability and accessibility was an afterthought," Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said at a press conference earlier this month, according to Reuters. "If Gilead's approach to pricing is the future of how blockbuster drugs are launched, it will cost billions and billions of dollars to treat just a fraction of patients."
Gilead has defended itself by pointing out the discounts it has given insurers and public health programs.
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