Since I first travelled to India in May 2015 to buy generic Sovaldi and ribavirin to cure my hepatitis C my work has focused on providing information about the best hepatitis C treatment options.
Three years have passed since that trip to India and in 2018 a number of new Hep C treatments have become available and prices of both the brand and generic treatments have fallen.
Also, importantly, a lot more research has been done into the treatment outcomes of the different Hep C drugs. The published results of this research has shown some very interesting results, most interesting of these results is that the cheapest drug combination, Sofosbuvir 400 mg + Daclatasvir 60 mg, is probably the best treatment option for most people with HCV. Below is a graph from tests by the pharma giant Abbvie, the manufacturer of Mavyret. These results show that Sofosbuvir + Daclatasvir is superior to Mavyret for treating all genotypes except, possibly, Genotype 3.
Sofosbuvir and Daclatasvir
The combination of Sofosbuvir 400 mg (Sovaldi) and Daclatasvir 60 mg (Daklinza) was the world’s first pan-genotype Hepatitis C treatment. However because Sovaldi is owned by Gilead and Daklinza is owned by Bristol Myer Squib this drug combination was never promoted or advertised. Gilead promoted Sovaldi and Harvoni and BMS did not do much at all to promote Daklinza. Both companies put high price tags on their drugs so that the price for the combined treatment of Sofosbuvir + Daclatasvir was around US$140,000. The high price meant that health insurance companies and national health services were not interested in Sof + Dac as a Hep C treatment option...
Click here to find out why sofosbuvir and dacalatasvir are relatively cheap, as well as to read Greg’s blog in its entirety.
