Biotech Values

[ciotera]

dangerous decision for the payers

What's so medically and politically dangerous about requiring a fibrosis test to assess liver damage before spending 100k to cure treat the cause of it? What's inaccurate about fibrosis level predicting chances of needing a transplant? Are you sure that at these price levels, the HCC/transplant cost savings are going to ever materialize? Vast majority of the patients without treatment would never progress to HCC and need a transplant.

would inevitably lead to more liver transplants and cancer cases

More than what? Surely, not more than now? If I only treat F3/F4s like in Spain or Brazil, surely it'll be a vast improvement over the current situation, esp. with the cure rates we are seeing in cirrhotics. Should we treat any disease that could lead to a potential costly complication, regardless of how prevalent it is and how unlikely the complication and how costly the treatment? I think at these prices there is a good argument here for payers to start rationining treatment to only those who need it.