Hepatitis C drugs to cost less

These drugs are likely to be launched at a fraction of the branded version, providing a major relief to the 12 million (as confirmed by WHO) Hepatitis C patients. Under present circumstances, patients are also required to buy imported drugs at a huge cost to treat the disease which can be life threatening.

As of now, there are few generics available in the market to treat Hep-c for interferon-free treatment. Pegylated interferon is an old, expensive, injectable chemotherapy drug with serious side effects used to treat Hep C in combination with sofosbuvir and ribavirin. The interferon-free treatment, which costs over $90,000 in the US and over 50,000 euros in the EU will be available to Indian patients for about Rs 55,000 or about $1,000 or even less thanks to competition between generic manufacturers, as reported by TOI.

The combination of Sofosbuvir and daclatasvir has a 90 per cent cure rate. This combo cures the disease in a short-time, with no other generic version drug reported to cure in a similar manner.

Indian generics are already being used by patients in many countries spread across Australia, many European countries, the US, and Canada. Increase in generic drugs for Hep-C is only expected to revolutionise Hep C treatment in the region and all across the world as they did in the case of HIV/AIDS.