"Scandalous" according to Pani, Lorenzin asks the Regions to speed up
The new hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir has so far been administered to "only 30 patients in 6 regions, a scandalous thing". This was said by the director general of AIFA, Luca Pani, during a press conference in Rome with the Minister of Health, Beatrice Lorenzin, who responded to the news by highlighting: "The negotiation and the technical indications" for the dispensing of the medicine "are arrived at the end of December, so it's only been a month. But bureaucracy cannot dominate in this case, because we have to give it to 50,000 patients and for some, a month can mean the difference between life and death". The minister therefore asked the Regions to speed up the process for dispensing sofosbuvir, “financed thanks to the 1 billion euro fund in the Stability law. At this point, the central state can only supervise the administration with the registers. Everyone must understand the delicacy of the issue, and for my part I asked the Health Commission to meet every 15 days to address priority issues like this with the Regions ". Subsequently, according to Lorenzin, for future new innovative but expensive treatments, also against other diseases, it will be necessary to "reach an agreement between buyers from all Western countries".
(BDC) – January 28, 2015 – PharmaKronos
