Yes. It is not an exaggeration. There is now a permanent cure for hepatitis c.
The name of the drug is Sovaldi (sofosbuvir). It has extremely minimal side effects. Treatment will last 12 weeks for a total cure. Cure rate has been above 90% in all cases so far. It is now FDA approved.
Here is the FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION(FDA) report about it: http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/byaudien...377920.htm
The company that has the drug is GILEAD. They bought a smaller company that was doing the research on the drug for $11 billion. Now, sofosbuvir belongs to GILEAD.
Before i get into the cost of the drug, etc... let us discuss the science:
I couldnt find much about the science of the drug functionality beside one line where the FDA mention that the drug is a nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor... they refer to the active metabolite as GS-331007. Hahaha. Bunch of fucks. I understand GILEAD spent $11 billion and they need to make money, as such, they keep things a secret. anyways....
The drug is a nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor... from this i can surmise that it attaches complimenting, synthetic, modified nucleotide strands to the Hepatitis C virus nucleotide sequence thereby stopping the replication process of the virus.
Let me try and break it down further:
Nucleotides are basic building blocks of DNA or RNA, which is needed by all living, breeding things on this planet..including viruses. These building blocks of DNA and RNA that are called nucleotides are basically sugar, more precisely, sugar-acids.
And they join to each other like chain links...like a twisting ladder.
Now, if you modify a little bit one of this sugar building block... you can turn it from nucleotides into nucleosides... What is the difference between the two? Imagine that one can shake hands(nucleotides) and the other has one of his arm amputated(nucleoside). This modified sugar-block(nucleoside), the one-arm amputee, will not be able to attach to the next sugar building block in line because his arm is gone.... a wrench has been thrown into the link... thereby stopping the replicating(coping)process. the organism dies.
what is necessary to create a nucleoside? enzymes group called phosphorylating kinases.
I just mentioned above replicating/copying of nucleotides. so what does this? an enzyme called polymerase. Polymerase is the enzyme that helps assemble these sugar-blocks... which means that if you introduce a nucleoside(a modified nucleotide-- the amputee); the polyguy(polymerase) wont be able to attach the next nucleotide to continue the sequence of sugar blocks to build the ladder...you basically throw a wrench into the chain...that means that replication stops.
So, based on the little, one line description in that FDA report of sofosbuvir being a nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor... that is the best i can extrapolate about how sofosbuvir performs its function.
That is for the science, now, lets discuss the business side of things:
GILEAD, decides that they will sell this drug, sofosbuvir, for $1000 per pill. Yes, you are reading that correctly. A $1,000 per pill. The estimated total cost for the 12 weeks it takes to complete a treatment cycle is $84,000.
What a bunch of greedy arseholes! (but...will redound nicely for the stocks price. speaking of Gilead stock(ticker: GILD)...I will get to that in a second...)
The actual cost of these treatment should be around $150 to $250 max per person because the economy of scale for these drugs....not the current $84,000 price tag. Especially, since it only cost comparative antiviral drugs $1 per gram to manufacture; even more so, since 3 million americans and 170 million people worldwide are affected by hepatitis C ...a virus that will fucking destroy your liver.
Gilead, however, are not showing any mercy. Free market capitalism, baby!
They clearly want to milk this for all its worth. They obviously see it as 3million X $48,000 = $144,000,000,000 at very, very least when you look at it globally. Governments across the planet will just have to subsidizes what they need to subsidies for their citizens.
When the VP of Gilead was asked about these facts: that GILEAD only need 150,000 people at $1,000 per pill to recover the cost of $11billion; afterwards, will GILEAD be so kind as to lower the price of the drug to make it affordable for millions of people... the V.P of GILEAD, Gregg Alton said, and i quote "That's very unlikely that we would do that." Translation: pay us or fuck off!
Again, to re-iterate: To give a comparison, it only cost $1 per gram to make antiviral drugs for HIV or other Hepatitis drugs...so, sofosbuvir will probably be in that range too....but..once you've cornered the market, you can pretty much make everybody your bitch.
So, what are you going to do?
Well... you can take a look at the fundamental stock valuation of GILEAD(GILD) and decide for yourself maybe you should buy their stocks or stock options...
Also, i have taken the liberty of attaching the stock chart of GILD below:
The name of the drug is Sovaldi (sofosbuvir). It has extremely minimal side effects. Treatment will last 12 weeks for a total cure. Cure rate has been above 90% in all cases so far. It is now FDA approved.
Here is the FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION(FDA) report about it: http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/byaudien...377920.htm
The company that has the drug is GILEAD. They bought a smaller company that was doing the research on the drug for $11 billion. Now, sofosbuvir belongs to GILEAD.
Before i get into the cost of the drug, etc... let us discuss the science:
I couldnt find much about the science of the drug functionality beside one line where the FDA mention that the drug is a nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor... they refer to the active metabolite as GS-331007. Hahaha. Bunch of fucks. I understand GILEAD spent $11 billion and they need to make money, as such, they keep things a secret. anyways....
The drug is a nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor... from this i can surmise that it attaches complimenting, synthetic, modified nucleotide strands to the Hepatitis C virus nucleotide sequence thereby stopping the replication process of the virus.
Let me try and break it down further:
Nucleotides are basic building blocks of DNA or RNA, which is needed by all living, breeding things on this planet..including viruses. These building blocks of DNA and RNA that are called nucleotides are basically sugar, more precisely, sugar-acids.
And they join to each other like chain links...like a twisting ladder.
Now, if you modify a little bit one of this sugar building block... you can turn it from nucleotides into nucleosides... What is the difference between the two? Imagine that one can shake hands(nucleotides) and the other has one of his arm amputated(nucleoside). This modified sugar-block(nucleoside), the one-arm amputee, will not be able to attach to the next sugar building block in line because his arm is gone.... a wrench has been thrown into the link... thereby stopping the replicating(coping)process. the organism dies.
what is necessary to create a nucleoside? enzymes group called phosphorylating kinases.
I just mentioned above replicating/copying of nucleotides. so what does this? an enzyme called polymerase. Polymerase is the enzyme that helps assemble these sugar-blocks... which means that if you introduce a nucleoside(a modified nucleotide-- the amputee); the polyguy(polymerase) wont be able to attach the next nucleotide to continue the sequence of sugar blocks to build the ladder...you basically throw a wrench into the chain...that means that replication stops.
So, based on the little, one line description in that FDA report of sofosbuvir being a nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor... that is the best i can extrapolate about how sofosbuvir performs its function.
That is for the science, now, lets discuss the business side of things:
GILEAD, decides that they will sell this drug, sofosbuvir, for $1000 per pill. Yes, you are reading that correctly. A $1,000 per pill. The estimated total cost for the 12 weeks it takes to complete a treatment cycle is $84,000.
What a bunch of greedy arseholes! (but...will redound nicely for the stocks price. speaking of Gilead stock(ticker: GILD)...I will get to that in a second...)
The actual cost of these treatment should be around $150 to $250 max per person because the economy of scale for these drugs....not the current $84,000 price tag. Especially, since it only cost comparative antiviral drugs $1 per gram to manufacture; even more so, since 3 million americans and 170 million people worldwide are affected by hepatitis C ...a virus that will fucking destroy your liver.
Gilead, however, are not showing any mercy. Free market capitalism, baby!
They clearly want to milk this for all its worth. They obviously see it as 3million X $48,000 = $144,000,000,000 at very, very least when you look at it globally. Governments across the planet will just have to subsidizes what they need to subsidies for their citizens.
When the VP of Gilead was asked about these facts: that GILEAD only need 150,000 people at $1,000 per pill to recover the cost of $11billion; afterwards, will GILEAD be so kind as to lower the price of the drug to make it affordable for millions of people... the V.P of GILEAD, Gregg Alton said, and i quote "That's very unlikely that we would do that." Translation: pay us or fuck off!
Again, to re-iterate: To give a comparison, it only cost $1 per gram to make antiviral drugs for HIV or other Hepatitis drugs...so, sofosbuvir will probably be in that range too....but..once you've cornered the market, you can pretty much make everybody your bitch.
So, what are you going to do?
Well... you can take a look at the fundamental stock valuation of GILEAD(GILD) and decide for yourself maybe you should buy their stocks or stock options...
Also, i have taken the liberty of attaching the stock chart of GILD below:
.
A year from now you will wish you had started today.....May fortune favours the bold.