WHO Issues Guidelines For Hep C. Drug

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released guidelines for the distribution and sale of hepatitis C drugs for the first time ever, in light of the release of new revolutionary treatment options.

According to a WHO press release announcing the finalization of the regulations, their key purpose is to ensure that new hepatitis C treatment options that have been recently made available in North America and Europe are available to people of all walks of life.

The drugs in question -- namely Gilead Sciences' Sovaldi -- currently cost an arm and a leg to obtain. Past reports have put Sovaldi at $84,000 per 12-week treatment, costing an estimated $1000 for a single pill in the U.S. A treatment combination of Sovaldi and the drug Olysio -- an option that some experts argue can cure a patient of hepatitis C entirely -- has been estimated to cost about $150,000 per treatment.

Last month, Democratic members of Congress wrote to Gilead's executive vice president for corporate and medical affairs, Gregg Alton, questioning the exorbitant cost of the medication. The congress members said they were concerned that the high price-tag of the medication would make the life-changing drug exclusive to only upper-income patients.

Now WHO officials echo these concerns, announcing that the organization is offering to provide "assistance to make the new treatments available and consideration of all possible avenues to make them affordable for all."

"Hepatitis C treatment is currently unaffordable to most patients in need. The challenge now is to ensure that everyone who needs these drugs can access them," said Dr Peter Beyer, Senior Advisor for the Essential Medicines and Health Products Department at WHO, in the WHO press release. "Experience has shown that a multi-pronged strategy is required to improve access to treatment, including creating demand for treatment. The development of WHO guidelines is a key step in this process."

While the guidelines focus primarily on ways to encourage screening and treatment widely available, they do little to touch on the economic burden these new strategies may place on a country. Economic experts have recently voiced concerns that even if drugs like Solvaldi are made affordable, the burden will have just been reallocated from the patient to insurance providers or the federal government.

The WHO guidelines were announced in a news release on April 9.