Hepatitis C Drugs, TB Antibiotic Meds & Cancer Drugs Added to WHO's List of Essential Medicines

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has added a new array of medicines to its list of essential medicines and the agency has urged pharmaceutical companies to lower the prices.

Among the medicines added last Friday on WHO's Essential Medicines List are five hepatitis C drugs, four tuberculosis medicine, and 16 cancer drugs, according to the New York Times. This list is what WHO considers as "the minimum medicine needs for a basic health‐care system," which the agency believes should be made available at lower prices especially at poorer countries.

Among the drugs carrying high price tags are the three hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni by Gilead Sciences, and Viekira Pak by AbbVie. These medicines are sold from $63,000 to $94,500, according to The Wall Street Journal. While Gilead initiated production of low-cost versions of its drugs in over 90 countries, it has been criticized by certain relief groups in an article by WSJ a few months ago.

"While some efforts have been made to reduce their price for low-income countries, without uniform strategies to make these medicines more affordable globally the potential for public health gains will be reduced considerably, " said Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation for Who, said in a statement.

Patient advocacy groups are praising the UN agency for its longer list. "This is huge," Ellen 't Hoen, advisor to Medicines Patent Pool, a non-profit organization that helps in making medicines more accessible by working with drug manufacturers, and former director of policy and advocacy at Doctors Without Borders, also said in a statement quoted by WSJ.

She added, "When the WHO deems medicines medically essential, governments, companies and the international community need to take actions to see that they are made available and affordable. Such a response is especially needed as new medicines are increasingly patented around the world and thus only available at monopoly prices that prevent widespread access."

In a news release by WHO last Friday, Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-General, said, "When new effective medicines emerge to safely treat serious and widespread diseases, it is vital to ensure that everyone who needs them can obtain them.

Placing them on the WHO Essential Medicines List is a first step in that direction."

The WHO list is increasingly being used by governments around the world as the guide and standard to their own medicine lists. That is because every medicine in the WHO list has been proven to be efficient, safe, and of high quality.