Hepatitis C Drug Price Limiting State Medicaid Approvals: Health

The price of Gilead Sciences Inc.’s $1,000-a-day hepatitis C pill is keeping state-run Medicaid programs from making it available to many of the people who are most likely to be infected with the disease.

People in Medicaid, the government health plan for the poor, are prime candidates for Gilead’s Sovaldi, which works better and carries fewer side effects than existing therapies. The $84,000 cost for the cure over 12 weeks, the most expensive medicine for the disease, has states from Pennsylvania to Colorado limiting its use to only the sickest patients, according to health officials and private insurers that manage care for Medicaid programs.