Gilead’s Hep C Drug Receives Approval in Japan
TipRanks | Mar 31, 2015 09:38AM ET
Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) announced on March 26 that Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare approved Sovaldi as a hepatitis C treatment. The approval comes a year and a half after the biotech company filed the New Drug Application, making Sovaldi the first Gilead drug available in Japan. Sovaldi is an attractive treatment option because it is one pill taken once a day for twelve weeks that directly targets the virus.
Japan offers a large potential market for Sovaldi because the country has one of the highest rates of liver cancer due to hepatitis C of any industrialized country, according to a press release. Gilead Executive Vice President, Norbert Bischofberger, commented, “There is a need in Japan for new HCV treatment options that are more effective and better tolerated and we have been pleased to partner with the medical community here in Japan to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of Sovaldi.”
Although the treatment of hepatitis C has come a long way, Gilead has come under fire for marketing the drugs at a prohibitively expensive price tag. Sovaldi’s full price tag is $84,000 per treatment course, or $1,000 per pill. Despite the price tag, Gilead reported total Sovaldi sales of $1.732 billion in the fourth quarter. Sovaldi is Gilead’s second highest grossing treatment next to Harvoni, its other hepatitis C treatment which brought in $2.107 billion in sales in the last quarter. Together, Sovaldi and Harvoni make up more than half of Gilead’s sales.
According to TipRanks today.
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