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Come see the Sphinx and save on Sovaldi.

That’s the implicit pitch of an unusual campaign that’s spurring dozens of hepatitis C patients to fly to Egypt each month in pursuit of a cure they can afford.

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The story of the aggressive marketing drive, launched last May as “Tour n’ Cure,” illuminates how the Egyptian drug maker Pharco is seizing an opening left vacant by the global drug makers that dominate the market for the new wave of curative hepatitis C drugs. It also shows how medical tourism is being leveraged to invigorate a devastated tourist sector that badly needs a boost. And it raises questions about whether patients who pursue the low-cost treatment are getting the follow-up care they need.

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