Hepatitis C cure: faster, less expensive treatment shows positive results according to new study

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Just last year, the FDA has given their approval to a new drug called Harvoni for the treatment of Hepatitis C. So, this was supposed to be a good news for those who have been suffering from the infectious disease, which mostly targets a person's liver and could lead to death if complications occur.

The problem is that this combo drug Harvoni, which is a blend of sofosbuvir and another antiviral drug called ledipasvir, has a price tag of $1,125 per pill. The patients would have to take it for a three-month period, which makes the total cost of the treatment rise to more than $90,000, according to WebMD.

Not all patients can afford that. In fact, only a handful can, which may include celebrities like Pamela Anderson who just recently announced via her Instagram account that she was cured from Hepatitis C. And, even she was hopeful that the uber-expensive treatment can soon be on hand for the ordinary people.

"I am CURED!!!—I just found out," she wrote on the caption of one of her Instagram posts. "I pray anyone living with Hep C can qualify or afford treatment. It will be more available soon. I know treatment is hard to get still."

Meanwhile, Raymond Schinazi, PhD., director of the Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology at Emory University in Atlanta, said that he was able to find a way to shorten the treatment time from three months to just three weeks. This means that the cost of the treatment will also significantly go down, which is estimated at a 60 percent cost reduction.

Schinazi experimental treatment uses three different drugs, instead of two, that serve their different purposes to prevent the virus from replicating itself. "These are three of the most potent drugs available. You put them all together and you blow the virus away, basically. It has no way to escape," he said.

Another hindrance to this potential cure for Hepatitis C is that the three drugs used were all from different companies. Schinazi said that these companies won't allow for a joint testing of the drugs because they were testing each of the drugs in combination with others that they also produce.

Schinazi and his team will present their findings at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Association of the Study of Liver Diseases in San Francisco. "This is the wave of the future, what everyone should be focused on. As I get older, I don't have time to develop drugs that treat. I want to cure everything."