Cost of Hep C Medication Nursing Research Assignemnt

Cost of Hepatitis C Medication
Name
Institutional Affiliation Cost of Hepatitis C Medication
Hepatitis C is a curable liver syndrome triggered by the presence of the hepatitis C virus. The infection causes both acute and prolonged hepatitis c, ranging in severity from a slight illness lasting several weeks to a severe, lifetime ailment. Roughly, 71 million people globally suffer from chronic hepatitis C, and a large number of these patients are likely to develop cirrhosis or liver cancer (WHO, 2017). On average, there are close to 399,000 fatalities each year arising from hepatitis C, mostly from liver complications and hepatocellular carcinoma (WHO, 2017). While research is still ongoing, there is still no vaccine for hepatitis C. However, treatment and medicines to cure the disease are available, but they are quite expensive. The effect of this is that many people cannot afford the medication even when the disease is in the acute stage, which leads to the advancement of the disease from acute to lifelong hepatitis C (Kamal-Yanni, 2015). The purpose of this essay is to explain the true cost of an expensive medication.
To understand why pharmaceutical companies price some of their drugs high, it is important to understand the process involved in drug creation. The process of creating a drug from the beginning to making it available to the public can take years or even decades. To begin with, the pharmaceutical company must first identify the necessity for a type of treatment. To identify this kind of need, the companies observe the concerns raised by doctors and patients in their interaction with the existing drugs (Pierce, 2016). Additiona...