Segment 10: Hepatitis C Costs in the Spotlight

In the last year the hepatitis C drug market has gained a lot of attention in the healthcare industry despite the fact that oncology as a specialty drug market has been very expensive for years now.

Matthew D. Harman, PharmD, MPH, believes most of the attention is likely because these drugs were priced as orphan drugs even though hepatitis C is not an orphan condition.

“This class grew by almost $14 billion in 2014; we’ve never had a single class impact our drug spend in such a way,” Steven Miller, MD, MBA, said. “And so I think that’s clearly why this became the number one topic for many of us in healthcare last year.”