Rating New Hepattits Drugs: What Standard?

There seem to be two problems with the newest drugs for hepatitis C,  simeprevir (Olysio) and sofosbuvir (Sovaldi). The problem most discussed these days is "miracle drugs cost too much." For example, guru David Blumenthal, MD, holds forth on the Commonwealth Fund website--http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/blog/2014/jul/drugs-and-dollars?omnicid=EALERT526507&mid=[e-mail]--that Sovaldi is "dramatically effective and extraordinarily expensive." Robert Steinbrook and Rita F. Redberg, in an editorial in JAMA Internal Medicine, declare the new drugs "a scientific triumph". They then go on to note the problem--that Sovaldi can cost $1000 per tablet for 12 weeks' treatment, putting the cost at $84,000 ($168,000 for 24 weeks).Our old friend Dr. Roy Poses at Health Care Renewal seems to be one of the few who's discussing a radically different problem--"maybe the drugs that cost so much are not miracle drugs at all." In his latest post: http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2014/07/sovaldi-quantum-leap-backwards-to-days.html--he highlights the most recent article in JAMA, which is fawned over in an accompanying editorial despite the fact that it's non-randomized and non-controlled. Dr. Poses points out that the FDA decided to approve Sovaldi as a "breakthrough drug" which seems to have undercut the requirements that it be documented by something akin to science.The article that accompanied the editorial in JAMA Internal Medicine addressed an evidence rep...

Source: blog.bioethics.net - July 28, 2014 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Howard Brody Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs