Senior health officials may have to bar Gilead’s new hepatitis C pill Sovaldi from being funded on the NHS after new data shows it would cost the health service £1 billion a year to fund.

This comes despite NICE saying in recent draft guidance that it is willing to pay for the treatment, which costs around £35,000 per patient, making it one of the most expensive drugs outside of oncology in the world.

On top of this, an additional £2,400 for Roche’s ageing injectable treatment Copegus (ribavirin) would also need to be added on as this is required for the full course of treatment.

NHS England’s specialist commissioning fund is currently paying £18.7 million for the drug as it is being assessed by NICE, with around 500 patients already gaining access to the medicine.

But according to the internal NHS documents seen by the Health Service Journal, NHS officials have written in a briefing note that the £1 billion estimated cost of providing the drug to 20,000 hepatitis C patients was ‘prohibitive’.

For more details, go to: http://www.pharmafile.com/news/195112/sovaldi-unaffordable-says-nhs-documents?