Rs 2,200 drug can treat hepatitis B patients

An effective drug for treating hepatitis B virus (HBV) could be mass-produced for as little as USD 36 per person per year against the current US price of over USD 15,000, scientists say.
The advance could lead to huge reductions in the number of people being infected with Hepatitis B which causes liver cancer and liver cirrhosis, both of which can be fatal.
Researchers from the University of Liverpool analysed the factors which influence the cost of manufacturing of drugs for Hepatitis B, including the cost of the raw materials, the amount of drug needed and the patent situation of each drug.

They found that the drug entecavir has the potential to be mass produced as a generic drug at USD 36 (Rs 2,277) - a fraction of its current price of USD 15,000 (Rs 949,125) - which would mean that all countries could afford to use it.
Entecavir is an effective antiviral drug used in the treatment of HBV infection with few adverse side effects to patients, low levels of resistance.
The dose is only 0.5 milligrammes per day, so only a fifth of a gram would need to be produced to provide a year's supply. This is one reason why this drug is so cheap to manufacture, researchers said.

Currently, entecavir is the most expensive drug for Hepatitis B on the market in both developed and developing countries.

However, the expiration of its patent in February 2015 in the US and other countries means it could now be manufactured as a generic drug by other companies at a far lower cost.
"We have shown that the Hepatitis B drug, entecavir, could be mass produced for only 24 pounds (USD 36) per person per year," Dr Andrew Hill, Senior Visiting Research Fellow in the University's Department of Department of Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, said.
"Combining mass vaccination with mass treatment would lead to huge reductions in the number of people being infected with Hepatitis B, and could significantly lower the death rates from the current 686,000 per year worldwide," said Hill.

In 2013, an estimated 686,000 people died from the Hepatitis B worldwide and more than 350 million people are chronically infected with the virus, researchers said.
Hepatitis B is transmitted through blood and infected bodily fluids. There is also a risk of infected mothers passing on the Hepatitis B virus to their children.
The research is published in the Journal of Virus Eradication 2015.