Mass. AG Eyes Gilead Lawsuit

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is mulling legal action against Gilead Sciences over its sky-high prices for two hepatitis C medications, alleging that the company’s approach could violate the state’s antitrust laws.

“Because Gilead’s drugs offer a cure for a serious and life-threatening infectious disease, pricing the treatment in a manner that effectively allows HCV to continue spreading through vulnerable populations, as opposed to eradicating the disease altogether, results in massive public harm,” Healey wrote in a letter to Gilead.

“My civil enforcement attorneys will continue to examine this potential claim for unfair commercial conduct,” the letter adds.

Healey buttresses this threat with pleas to the company to “reconsider” its pricing structure for the two drugs — $1,000 per pill — “so that we may actually see this infectious disease eradicated in the United States in our lifetime.”

Healey’s letter contends that the company’s prices put treatment out of reach for most HCV patients, and healthcare programs must ration out Gilead drugs due to the cost. She notes that “if our state purchased Sovaldi at its retail price of $84,000 [for a full course of treatment for one patient] for all of the people who are infected with HCV in our state prisons, the cost of treating these incarcerated people would easily exceed our entire budget for prisoner healthcare.”

The letter notes that the company charges only $10 for the same pill in Egypt, and $4 for that pill in India.

Read the letter here: www.fdanews.com/01-28-16-Letter.pdf.