Deal reduces price of life-saving hepatitis C drugs for Canadians

This is now that the provinces have sealed a deal with three pharmaceutical companies to reduce the cost of the ultra-expensive drugs.

The pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA), which negotiates prices on behalf of the provincial and territorial public drug programs, announced on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with the makers of six breakthrough hepatitis C medications, including the best-known drugs in the class, Harvoni and Sovaldi.

Shortly after the pCPA confirmed the deal, the British Columbia government declared that its PharmaCare program would begin covering the drugs for patients with chronic hepatitis C, regardless of the type or severity, beginning in 2018.

“This is excellent news,” said Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, which has a hepatitis C research program.

“By having a more widely available treatment, you can foresee a situation where not only are [hepatitis C] morbidity and mortality controlled, but also we change the course of the epidemic,” he said. “Ultimately, we can aim to control the hepatitis C epidemic in our midst.”

Ontario confirmed Wednesday that it, too, will expand access to hepatitis C medications as a result of the agreement.

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