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Hepatitis C Virus
Hepatitis C causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in a large number of cases. Photograph: Bsip/UIG via Getty Images
Hepatitis C causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in a large number of cases. Photograph: Bsip/UIG via Getty Images

Patients with end-stage liver disease caused by hepatitis C to get new drug

This article is more than 9 years old
NHS will pay for about 500 people to receive Sofosbuvir, which could cure them, without waiting for guidance from Nice

The NHS is to pay for around 500 people with end-stage liver disease caused by hepatitis C to receive a new drug which could cure them, without waiting for guidance from the advisory body, Nice.

The new drug, Sofosbuvir, has been shown to cure 90% of people with hepatitis C infection and is causing great excitement in the medical world. But the price tag is very high, at £34,983 for a 12-week course, per patient.

Around 216,000 people in the UK are believed to be infected with hepatitis C, which causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in a large number of cases. The 500 people who will receive the drug as a matter of urgency are in danger of dying and in many cases are on a liver transplant waiting list. Current treatments for hepatitis C do not work in all patients.

NHS England has announced it will spend £18.7m on the drug for these serious cases in advance of any assessment by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which advises the NHS on cost effectiveness. Nice will assess the drug this year, but the government has been under pressure to act faster because of the perilous situation of so many people.

The Hepatitis C Trust has been warning that lives will otherwise be lost. Charles Gore, its chief executive, had been complaining that the process of getting effective new drugs to people who need them moved "incredibly slowly".

The UK, he said just prior to the announcement, was often one of the last markets to adopt innovative medicines in Europe. The application to NHS England was submitted in January, he said. "In the meanwhile these patients are getting sicker and sicker and some are going to die entirely preventable deaths."

The Hepatitis C Trust later said it was "delighted" to hear of the decision by NHS England.

The new drugs, said Gore, offered "an extraordinary opportunity not just to reverse the ever rising death toll from hepatitis C but to consign this cancer-causing virus to history as a public health threat".

The clinical director of specialised services at NHS England, James Palmer, said: "This is a major step forward for patients with this debilitating, and often life-threatening, disease and is evidence of NHS England's commitment to widen access to cutting edge drugs, treatments and therapies where both clinically appropriate and cost effective.

"The majority of these patients will already be under the care of a specialist treatment centre, and we will ensure that clinicians are aware of this policy, so that all eligible patients have the opportunity to access this drug".

Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus that is transmitted between drug users through contaminated needles, but it has also infected many people who had blood transfusions on the NHS before 1991. Some people are thought to have been infected by tattoo needles and piercings.

NHS England anticipates that Nice will find the drug, which is given in combination with some much cheaper, older drugs, is cost-effective.

A patient with chronic hepatitis C is likely to be a continuing cost to the NHS and the price of a liver transplant is in excess of £50,000.

A campaign has already begun to get access to the drug, made by Gilead, for people in parts of the developing world, where hepatitis C is a major problem. The fight is being likened to the struggle to access HIV drugs at prices that poor countries can afford.

More on this story

More on this story

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  • GPs braced for shutdown after 'toxic mix' of loss of funds and high demand

  • NHS patients are missing out on life-saving robot surgery

  • Liver disease deaths: areas with highest levels 'most starved of NHS funds'

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