HCV $GILD
There are approximately 3 million people infected with HCV in the United States.
About 75% of these people do not know they have it. That is less surprising when you understand that only 20 to 30% of the infected are symptomatic.
About 25% of the infected are in prison. Few of them will get treated.
The vast majority of those infected were infected between 1945 and 1965. Application of general mortality tables to this population distribution suggests 20 to 25,000 deaths per year.
There are about 17,000 new infections each year in the United States. But the disease is so slow moving that these new infections will be treated decades from now.
The CDC has many releases on the subject for anyone who is interested in reading them.
When the data is taken together, I submit that it supports the bolus view of the treatment opportunity and a rapidly declining revenue from peak.
Given this, I again ask, what PE should be applied to these earnings?
The NASH opportunity is orders of magnitude greater.