The Portuguese universal access program to direct-acting antivirals (Sovaldi® and Harvoni®) for the treatment of Hepatitis C : a financial analysis of the first 2 years

• Autor(a) principal: Esteves, Bernardo Augusto Pessoa de Amorim da Costa
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/22681
• topic: Hepatitis C; Sovaldi; Harvoni; Sofosbuvir; Ledipasvir; Markov Model; Hepatite C; Modelo de Markov; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Nowadays, 350.000 people die annually due to the direct or indirect action of the Hepatitis C virus, responsible for many acute and chronic hepatitis worldwide and their further progression to more severe diseases like Hepatic Cirrhosis and Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Portugal is no exception as 150.000 people are estimated to be infected with related deaths up to 1.200 annually. Two years ago, after Gilead's development of two new drugs - Sovaldi® (Sofosbuvir) and Harvoni® (Sofosbuvir + Ledipasvir) - with treatment success rates around 95%, the Portuguese government took the decision of granting universal access to this drugs to all patients infected with the HCV, regardless of the stage of progression of the disease. The objective of this thesis is therefore to perform an economic analysis of this measure, understanding the impact, costs and benefits for the patients and healthcare system, what conclusions are willing to be taken and how can it influence future deals. The collection of data from the Infarmed press releases as well as previous studies enabled the comparison of the economic profit for the government when treating patients with Sovaldi® / Harvoni® versus Pegylated Interferon and Ribavirin. The results showed that the new therapy is cost-effective, increasing HCV infected patients’ life expectancy while avoiding many severe occurrences.