Patient advocacy groups protest limits of Gilead's support program

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Patient advocacy groups protest limits of Gilead's support program

SAN FRANCISCO — At the Liver Meeting 2015, patient advocacy groups stood in protest of restrictions implemented this summer to the patient support program, demanding reinstatement of free treatment access to all patients with hepatitis C virus.

Diana L. Sylvestre, MD, assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, also runs OASIS, a clinic in Oakland, California, which took a lead role in organizing the protest because, as she told Healio.com/Hepatology: “People can’t get access to these medications. It’s just not right. It’s not profiting. It’s profiteering.”

She said, “We chose to take on Gilead because it has come to the point that we cannot afford to treat hepatitis C. Gilead, despite projecting profits of 30 billion in 2015 … cut back their patient assistance program drastically. That made it hard for people who needed the medications and might spread hepatitis C to other people; it made it difficult for them to get the medications. What that means to a clinic like ours is we can’t do our work.”

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