GENEVA (Reuters) – The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal negotiated between 12 Pacific rim countries, raises serious concerns about the affordability of healthcare and medicines, World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan said on Thursday. “I’m following the discussion and debate and there are some very serious concerns about the trans-Pacific Partnership, the biggest trade agreement ever,” she told a conference in Geneva. …
Aetna Inc, the third-largest U.S. health insurer, said it has negotiated a discount with Gilead Sciences Inc for its hepatitis C treatment and will offer it as the preferred choice to its nearly 20 million commercial customers. Aetna, which posted an updated coverage policy on its website on Friday, said in a statement that it believes its price is “competitive with other recently announced agreements for this class of therapy.” Aetna and other insurers have pushed back against the high price of hepatitis C treatments and other drugs, questioning their affordability after Gilead’s first drug, Sovaldi, was priced at $84,000 per treatment, or roughly $1,000 per pill, in late 2013. Since that approval, AbbVie and Gilead have given discounts to their list prices of 30 percent or more, according to analysts.