Analyst: 160,000 Patients Affected by AbbVie Inc. Hepatitis Pact

AbbVie Inc.'s (NYSE: ABBV) agreement to be the exclusive hepatitis C treatment supplier to pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co. (NASDAQ: ESRX) affects up to about 160,000 people in the U.S. suffering from the disease, according to calculations an analyst offered Tuesday.Hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus that may cause cirrhosis of the liver and other complications, can be treated with AbbVie's recently launched Viekira Pak, as well as with Gilead Sciences Inc.'s(NASDAQ: GILD) Harvoni and Solvaldi drugs.Evercore ISI's Mark Schoenebaum said the Abbvie agreement affects up 5.5 percent of the 3.2 million people in the U.S. suffering from the disease.Roughly 1 million of U.S. victims are covered by private insurers, 1 million by the Veterans Administration. Another 1 million are covered by Medicaid and about 550,000 by prisons, according to Anthony, who cited 2013 figures from Miller, a Seattle actuarial firm.Express Scripts manages drug benefits for between 8 percent and 15 percent of patients served by private plans, Anthony said.A standard course of Gilead's Harvoni hepatitis treatment costs a reported $94,500; Gilead's Sovaldi hepatitis drug, also affected by the Express Scripts decision, costs $84,000 per patient.AbbVie had initially priced its newly launched Viekira Pak hepatitis drug near at a similar level, but offered a rumored discount of 40 percent to Express Scripts.