Hepatitis C cures available today for as low as $6.20 a prescription in Australia

As of today, hepatitis C sufferers will get access to publicly-subsidized breakthrough cures that could eradicate the deadly and debilitating disease within a generation, thanks to an investment of more than A$1 billion ($716.3 million) by the Turnbull government.

Minister for Health Sussan Ley announced that Australians with hepatitis C would now pay just A$6.20 a prescription if they were a concession card holder or A$38.30 a prescription as a general patient for four different cures listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme today – saving patients as much as A$100,000 for treatment.

Harvoni, Sovaldi, Daklinza and Ibavyr listed

Ms Ley said today’s announcement would see the listing of multiple drug combinations to ensure cures for all types of Hep C were made available to the entire patient population through the PBS from March 1 2016. The medicines are: Harvoni (sofosbuvir with ledipasvir) and Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), both from Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD); Daklinza (daclatasvir), from Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY); and Ibavyr (ribavirin) from Canadian drugmaker Pharmascience.

Ms Ley said that when taken as prescribed, the four breakthrough medicines listed today had a cure rate of over 90% and worked faster and with fewer side effects than anything else previously subsidized on the PBS.

“Australia is one of the first countries in the world to publicly subsidize these cures for every one of our quarter-of-a-million Hep C suffers, no matter what their condition or how they contracted it,” Ms Ley said.