Health and Disability

A major source of this growth was the introduction of Sovaldi in December 2013, and Harvoni in October 2014. Both are very expensive breakthrough drugs for the treatment of hepatitis C (a disease of the liver, affecting approximately 3 million Americans). The new hepatitis C drugs have had a significant impact on growth rates in spending on prescription drugs and on national health spending.

I conclude with speculation about the future using rough estimates that I believe nonetheless provide some useful information. U.S. sales of hepatitis C drugs seem to have stabilized at about $14 billion per year, which equates to about 150,000 persons treated per year (at a rate of $90,000 per person treated).

The number of new cases per year is about 30,000 so our current rate of spending should be sufficient to reduce prevalence by about 120,000 per year. There are about 3 million people with hepatitis C in the U.S., so our current rate of spending could continue for many years before we run out of cases to treat. (Because hepatitis C is spread by those already infected, the number of new cases should dwindle toward zero as the overall prevalence falls toward zero.)