Profit Off The People –
July 22, 2018 – Scott’s Gilead investment appears to have begun in 2013, when the company’s stock began soaring after the groundbreaking Solvadi drug treatment was launched at a price of $1,000-a-pill, or $84,000 for a 12-week course. Harvoni and Epclusa are other expensive Hep C drugs the company makes and commonly used. But increasing competition from other products has caused Gilead’s stock to stall after years of sharp growth. In those early go-go years, both public and private payers derided the Hep C drugs as budget busters. A U.S. Senate Finance Committee investigation in 2015 concluded that Gilead put profits before patients in pricing its Hep C drugs, refusing to lower prices or offer discounts to maximize returns and stave-off competitors. The same probe found that Medicaid programs across the nation were able to treat less than 3 percent of the 700,000 patients infected with the disease, despite spending more than $1 billion on Solvadi.
