Hepatitis C Treatment with Generics: Bad News, Good News

Well I guess it had to happen, when you are battling forces like Big Pharma who have billions of dollars and hundreds of people that they can put into the battle, they are going to figure out some cunning plans and they are going to implement them. 

This weeks sees the first phases of Big Pharma’s long term plan to block people’s access to affordable Hep C treatment.

First they are working to prevent the early release of generic Harvoni in India, an important event that millions of Hep C patients around the world have been waiting for. Of course Hep C activists in Asia are trying to prevent this but it is difficult when you know how much money Big Pharma can throw at people in positions of influence in India. Money talks, money buys favours, money buys influence.

If the release of generic Harvoni is delayed in India you can be pretty sure it was big money from Big Pharma that was a major influencing factor.

What else?

APIs

The other great avenue of hope an healing in the last few months has been Chinese APIs. People have been able to purchase Daclatasvir and other Direct Acting Antiviral’s as concentrates and get them made into doses by chemists. Combining these DAAs with Indian Sofosbuvir has enabled access to highly effective and affordable Hep C treatment for all genotypes.

Up to now it has simply been a matter of sending and email, placing an order and sending the money. A week later the API arrived at the door and treatment began.

People were having fantastic results from this approach.

The hint that avenue was closing occurred a couple of weeks back as Mesochem started to tighten its requirements. Now those requirements have tightened further and it seems that very soon only bulk orders of Hep C APIs will be obtainable.

Access to Hep C APIs is also being blocked by sending the fear mongers into the retail pharmaceutical world. In Australia this has taken the form of an official letter warning Compound Chemists not to be involved in making APIs into capsules because this is likely to be part of a scam.

So this will force people into making up their own doses rather than have a professional chemist do it properly for them. Of course that is assuming that people are able to get APIs at all.

Next a leading liver specialist from one of Sydney’s leading hospitals, who sits on a number of boards associated with getting Hep C meds on the PBS, has created his own anti-generic fear campaign by warning of the unreliable quality of India generics. Of course he has done that without ever having had any of said generics tested. And he claims to be an advocate of science, when really he is just a flunky for Big Pharma.

So the mean machine of Big Pharm grinds on, using money and influence to crush the hopes of a cure for the tens of millions of people with Hep C. Using its power and influence to manipulate the media and well placed individuals within the health industry to achieve it goal of blocking access to affordable Hep C treatment.

In Australia the good news is that the Sofosbuvir + Simeprevir is recommended by EASL as a good treatment for Genotype 1 and Simprevir is approved by the PBS here. This means you can get the Sofosbuvir from India and a prescription for the Simeprevir and there you have a pretty damn good combo for G1 and a couple of other Genotypes also.

Yet there is still good news. I received this email yesterday from a guy who opted to treat his Hep G1 with Sof+Riba thinking that a 68% chance of a cure was better than none. He was almost half way through a 24 week course when he heard of the Daclatasvir API and added that to his treatment.