Pharmacy benefit manager CVS/Caremark has made a deal with Gilead Sciences to exclusively cover its two new hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatments, Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) and Harvoni (sofosbuvir/ledipasvir), further accelerating a new pricing competition in the hep C market, CNBC reports.
CVS is taking the opposite stance of its competitor Express Scripts, which recently announced that it would exclusively reimburse AbbVie’s new Viekira Pak regimen.
Viekira Pak was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December and has a list price of $83,319 for 12 weeks of therapy.
Harvoni was approved in October and costs around $94,000 for a 12-week treatment. Sovaldi costs around $84,000.
CVS officials mainly based their decision on pricing and the fact that Gilead’s new treatment requires patients to take only one pill a day, instead of three.
However, it is not yet clear whether CVS will cover treatment for all patients, regardless of their fibrosis stage, an important facet of Express Scripts’ deal with AbbVie.
CVS to Prioritize Sovaldi and Harvoni Over Viekira Pak
1 Comment
1 Comment