--- title: CVS to Cover Expensive Hepatitis C Drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi description: After similar deal made by a competitor. canonical: https://time.com/3654118/hepatitis-c-drug-harvoni-sovaldi-cvs/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-05T19:31:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T03:17:20.857Z article:section: Health og:title: CVS to Cover Expensive Hepatitis C Drugs og:description: After similar deal made by a competitor. og:url: https://time.com/3654118/hepatitis-c-drug-harvoni-sovaldi-cvs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltee2265f04be7430f/69877822e53abafca64d6d4b/460716609-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4180 og:image:height: 2351 og:image:alt: 460716609 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: CVS to Cover Expensive Hepatitis C Drugs twitter:description: After similar deal made by a competitor. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltee2265f04be7430f/69877822e53abafca64d6d4b/460716609-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # CVS to Cover Expensive Hepatitis C Drugs > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jan 5, 2015 7:31 PM UTC  Hepatitis C, artwork Hepatitis C, artwork Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jan 5, 2015 7:31 PM UTC The prescription drug benefit arm of CVS said Monday that it will exclusively cover two costly hepatitis C drugs that were until recently the only oral treatments available for the disease, following moves by a competitor to cover an alternative drug. Hepatitis C treatment has gone from a miserable process of daily injections to simple daily pills in recent years. But the cost of these new pills are exorbitant. One of the first companies to hit the mark with oral treatments, Gilead Sciences, offers two drugs for hepatitis C: Harvoni costs $95,500 for 12 weeks, and Sovaldi, costs $84,000\. That’s $1,000 per pill. [But as TIME reported](http://time.com/3643996/hepatitis-c-drugs/) last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new hepatitis C drug called Viekira Pak, developed by the pharmaceutical company AbbVie. At $83,319 for a 12-week course it’s only slightly less than what Gilead offers. The hope had been that more competition would drive down prices. In an effort to do just that, pharmacy benefit manager—and CVS competitor—Express Scripts negotiated a discount for Viekira Pak in exchange for making the drug the exclusive offering for its 25 million customers. **MORE:** [Why Hepatitis C Drugs May Soon Get Far Less Expensive](http://time.com/3643996/hepatitis-c-drugs/) Now CVS has made a similar deal with Gilead Sciences, [CNBC reports](http://www.cnbc.com/id/102310444). It will offer the companies’ drugs exclusively for it’s customers, though it’s unclear whether the drugs will indeed be discounted. “Our goal was to create the lowest net-cost solution for the entire population of patients with all genotypes of hepatitis C,” said CVS Health spokesperson Chris Cramer. “When making this decision, we evaluated a wide variety of factors including duration of therapy, relative distribution of genotype and cost of the individual agents in the category as well as the results of a comprehensive clinical review of the different hepatitis C regimens.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3654118/hepatitis-c-drug-harvoni-sovaldi-cvs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3654118/hepatitis-c-drug-harvoni-sovaldi-cvs/"},"headline":"CVS to Cover Expensive Hepatitis C Drugs","datePublished":"2015-01-05T19:31:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T03:17:20.857Z","description":"After similar deal made by a competitor","url":"https://time.com/3654118/hepatitis-c-drug-harvoni-sovaldi-cvs/","keywords":["Infectious Disease","Drugs","CVS"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltee2265f04be7430f/69877822e53abafca64d6d4b/460716609-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltee2265f04be7430f/69877822e53abafca64d6d4b/460716609-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"460716609","caption":"460716609","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/infectious-disease/","name":"Infectious Disease"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3654118/hepatitis-c-drug-harvoni-sovaldi-cvs/","name":"CVS to Cover Expensive Hepatitis C Drugs"}}]}] ```