Prescription Drug Costs Soar, Led by Hepatitis C Medicine

Expensive Hepatitis C Medications are driving prescription drug sales. Express Scripts says prescription drug spending soared 12 percent last year, the biggest increase in more than a decade. Gilead Science's Sovaldi--a treatment for Hepatitis C--accounted for more than a quarter of the total spending increase across Medicare, Medicaid and Commercial Health Plans. Express Scripts based its study on 85 million people who have drug benefits with the company. Gilead Sciene's Sovaldi costs $84,000 per patient for the course of a treatment. It has $10 billion in global sales last year, its first full year on the market.