Gilead Mexico

With a breakthrough cure for Hepatitis C listing in the U.S. at $1,000/pill, Gilead must now solve the issue of making it available to patients across the world, much as it did for its blockbuster HIV/AIDS antiretrovirals. For Erik Musalem, the new general manager of Gilead Mexico, the challenge was complicated by operating in a middle-income country, where Gilead’s terms for more vulnerable nations did not apply. For all practical purposes, Musalem had only one customer for his company’s Hep C medicine: Mexico’s public health system and the National Pricing Commission that set prices annually for the entire sector. With no lack of priorities competing for the finite resources of the public health sector, Musalem’s charge was to devise the strategy that in the long run would maximize access to the cure in Mexico while protecting the financial strength of Gilead Sciences, Inc.