Life or Death: Why Chinese Patients Mix Drug Cocktails at Home
- Life-saving hepatitis C medicines remain unavailable in China
- Gilead, Bristol-Myers working to get new drugs into China
Hepatitis C virus (HCV). HCV causes a hepatitis that is transmitted through the blood stream (intraveinous drugs, professional exposure and nosocomial transmission). During chronic hepatitis C, cirrhosis can develop 10-20 years later, with a risk of hepatic cancer. Image produced using high-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) from an image taken with transmission electron microscopy. Viral diameter around 22 nm.
Photographer: BSIP/UIG via Getty ImagesWith his health fast-deteriorating from a hepatitis C infection last year, Steven Wang decided to take his life into his own hands. The prescription medicine he needs isn’t available in China, given the nation’s stringent approval requirements for foreign drugs. So, he formulated a make-shift drug cocktail.
From a Chinese manufacturer of pesticides and fertilizers, the Shanghai-based customer-service worker bought a few grams of daclatasvir, the main ingredient in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s drug Daklinza. Because the drug isn’t yet approved in China, the chemical is supplied by Chinese industrial companies for domestic research and to generic drugmakers overseas as a raw pharmaceutical ingredient.