International Liver Conference: Activists Demand Affordable Hepatitis C Treatment
Pills cost pennies, greed costs lives.
As the 49th International Liver Conference is officially starting, activist held a demonstration in the main hall to raise the issue of access to hepatitis C treatment in low and middle-income countries. Their protest targeted Gilead whose recently-approved direct-acting antiviral, Sovaldi, sells for USD $84,000.
Activists chanted, "pills cost pennies, greed costs lives", "sovaldi, so expensive" and "let doctors cure people".
Symbolically, activists lay dead under golden blankets while others distributed golden pills representing Solvaldi, which Gilead sells for USD $1,000 per pill.
They unfurled a banner that read:" Gilead’s HCV drug sofosbuvir approved by the EMA and FDA, but accessible for how many?"
