Remember the that Miracle Hepatitis B Cure?

You knwo, the one that costs $1,000.00 a pill, Solvaldi?

Well, it turns out that, in addition to being priced at larcenous expensive, the evidence of its efficacy is simply not there:

The German agency performed this assessment based on a dossier submitted by the drug manufacturer (presumably Gilead).  The assessment found some reason to think the drug beneficial, but that the evidence was sparse, left many questions unanswered, and was inadequate to assess the drug for some important patient populations.  At this point, only a summary is available in English.  It includes links to further information in German.

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Thus the assessment concluded that the drug company dossier included at best irrelevant data that it tried to pass off as important, and inexplicably left out other data that might have been relevant.

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Summary

It is even bloodier money if the assumption that the drug is a "well-tolerated and effective cure," which  Dr Huyler held, proves not to be true.  It is clear that most of the money that Gilead is now scooping up in the US is not to pay retrospectively for research and development or drug production. Instead, it seems likely to be supporting marketing, public relations, some investors' profits, and huge executive compensation.  When the public realizes that the money may not be buying miracles, the outrage should increase.  

The Sovaldi case is a signal example of how our health care system is awash in marketing hype and public relations buzz that has swamped rational skeptical thinking about logic and evidence.  That marketing and PR is ever enriching managers while it will send the rest of us, health care professionals included, to the poor house.  And all the money we spend will not buy us the promised miracles and triumphs.

True health care reform would revisit the pact society once made with drug, biotechnology and device companies meant to promote reasonably priced innovation, but now promoting oligarchy; support transparency and honesty in clinical research; and challenge how health care managers can make millions or billions from unproven, and sometimes worthless or dangerous products.

It also turns out that the study was not double blind.

So the wonder drug may not be any more effective than existing drugs, and it costs a lot more.