Sovaldi, a new hepatitis C pill being hailed as a breakthrough medicine, has also jolted the medical industry given the hefty price tag that has been attached to the life-saving drug.

A single standard course treatment spanning 12-weeks is priced at $84,000. Reuters writes that with the high-expense of the pills, the cost of curing approximately 3 million Americans suffering from the disease could top $250 billion. Even for those who take the treatment at a shorter time, the cost would be lower but still massive in its totality.

In light of the new cure's high cost, legislators, insurers and health officials have urged rivals to lower their hepatitis C treatments upon entering the market.

"This is going to be a monumental problem for Medicaid and our plans," Jeff Myers president and chief executive officer of Medicaid Health Plans of America, a health industry trade group, said to Forbes. 

Industry experts recognize that most people dealing with Hepatitis C are from low income households or pay grades and thus wouldn't be able to afford treatment without insurance.

"Medicaid cannot handle that kind of charge," Myers said.

"Never before has a drug been priced this high to treat a patient population this large, and the resulting costs will be unsustainable for our country," quoted Healthline.com of Steve Miller, M.D., chief, medical officer at Express Scripts. "The burden will fall upon individual patients, state and federal governments, and payers [like Express Scripts] who will have to balance access and affordability in a way they never have had to before."

According to the FDA, Sovaldi is the first drug that has demonstrated safety and efficacy to treat certain types of HCV infection without the need for co-administration of interferon. It is a hepatitis C virus nucleotide analog NS5B polymerase inhibitor indicated for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection as a component of a combination antiviral treatment regimen.

When taken once daily for a period of 12 weeks, Sovaldi greatly reduces the length of interferon treatment that reduces pain for patients and compared to other treatment options, has less side effects. There is a similar drug in the market, Olysio, which was also approved last year and priced slightly lower.

Testing to Minimize Treatment to Four Week Period

In related news, Bristol-Myers Squibb has announced an experimental antiviral drug it will test with Gilead Sciences' Sovaldi that hopes to treat hepatitis C in a short four week period.

Eric Hughes, the chief of Bristol-Myers' hepatitis program explained during an interview with Reuters that the testing will revolve around an exploratory 30-patient trial testing its three-drug combination with Sovaldi.

Should the trials be successful, larger trials will be conducted to gain a more diverse population sample.

The hope is that cutting down the treatment process could minimize costs of Sovaldi to about $28,000.

For more information on Sovaldi, see Gilead Sciences' website.