AbbVie’s hepatitis C treatment gets insurance benefits for adolescents

AbbVie Korea said the Ministry of Health and Welfare expanded insurance coverage for the company’s eight-week oral treatment for chronic hepatitis C, Maviret (ingredient: glecaprevir and pibrentasvir), to benefit patients aged 12-18 from Monday.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare expanded insurance benefits on Mariret, AbbVie Korea’s hepatitis C drug, to ｉｎｃｌｕｄｅ patients aged 12-18, from Monday.

With the ministry’s move, chronic hepatitis C patients who have not received therapy before will have health insurance covered for eight weeks. Those who with treatment experience will get insurance between eight to 16 weeks.

The recent approval reduced the cost burden of Maviret down to 30 percent for adolescent patients with chronic hepatitis C virus.

The health authorities expanded the health insurance covered for adolescents based on part 1 of the DORA study results. DORA study is an open-label clinical trial that evaluated the safety and efficacy of Maviret after treating 47 adolescent patients between 12 and 18 for eight or 16 weeks.

“Although the number of adolescent patients with hepatitis C in Korea is smaller than adult patients, about 70 to 80 percent of them progress into the chronic stage, and their symptoms worsen and turn into cirrhosis or liver cancer, requiring a treatment,” Professor Kim Hyung-joon of the Department Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Chung-Ang University Hospital said.

Professor Kim added that the expanded health insurance benefit for Maviret would allow eight-week treatment for adolescent patients and enhance access to the drug.

Kim Jin-ju, an executive of AbbVie Korea, said, “The expansion of health insurance coverage is valuable as it has improved access to the drug and decreased the burden of treatment costs of Maviret, even for adolescent patients who had been in the blind spot.”

Maviret, taken orally once a day, is composed of two ingredients with a fixed-dose of combination that targets the protein required for hepatitis C replication and inhibits the reproduction of the virus.

The health authorities approved the drug in January 2018 and gave adult patients insurance coverage five months later.