PARIS, Oct 17 (APM) - The prices of first generation hepatitis C (HCV) protease inhibitors, Merck Sharp & Dohme’s Victrelis (boceprevir) and Janssen’s Incivo (telaprevir) are to be halved from the start of 2015, France's Official Journal (JO) announced on Friday.
These are unilateral decisions taken by the French economic committee for health products (CEPS), and signify that the committee was unable to reach an agreement with the two pharma companies concerned. Such decisions are fairly rare. The extent of the price cut, for drugs that have been marketed for only a few years, is exceptional and can explain the lack of agreement.
Victrelis and Incivo were added to the list of products reimbursed to people covered by health insurance in July 2012 (APMMA 30229 & APMMA 30246). Before that, they were available under temporary authorisations (ATU).
In its decisions, CEPS relies on the opinions, dated May, of the Transparency Commission (CT) lowering the clinical benefit ranking from ASMR III (moderate) to ASMR IV (minor) of the two drugs (APMMA 38994).
The CT also qualified the place of Victrelis and Incivo in therapeutic strategy as “very restricted” in view of the arrival on the market of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), led by Gilead’s Sovaldi (sofosbuvir).
“CEPS decided to base itself on this re-evaluation of ASMR and consequently believed there was no justification (…) for maintaining a price almost four times higher for the triple therapy (boceprevir or telaprevir+pegylated interferon+ribavirin) in comparison with the dual therapy alone (pegylated interferon+ribavirin),” the committee says in its decision.
Consequently, the prices of the two drugs will fall by around 50% on Jan 2. Victrelis will then cost 1,677.50 euros for 336 capsules at 200 mg and Incivo 375 mg will cost 1,168.46 euros for 42 tablets and 4,550.54 euros for 168 tablets.
(Journal officiel of October 17, texts 18 and 19)
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