If they needed to charge everyone on the order of $1000/pill to recoup expenses, that would be one thing. That's not the issue, since they are offering it to most people (who do have insurance) at dramatically lower prices.
I know HNers are in love with market segmentation, but isn't there an ethical problem with using price to segment a market for treatment for serious medical problems based on who has insurance and who doesn't?
It's been a while since the first thread on this, but I'll just quote from the sovaldi website:
We believe that cost should not be a barrier to receiving treatment. That’s why the makers of SOVALDI offer a co-pay coupon. If you are eligible, you may pay no more than $5 per co-pay.
The SOVALDI co-pay coupon program will cover the out-of-pocket costs of your SOVALDI prescriptions after you pay the first $5 per prescription fill, up to a maximum of 20% of the catalog price of a 12-week regimen of SOVALDI. The coupon can be applied to up to 6 fills
So, if your health insurance pharmacy coverage were 80/20, instead of paying your end (20%) out of pocket, you'd pay $5 per fill. So you're paying very close to $0 per pill, instead of $1000. Well, ignoring your deductable, which might be significant, but the obamacare max is $6350, so that's an order of magnitude cost decrease for the Sovaldi prescription even if you have no other out of pocket healthcare costs that year.
The only remaining, meaningful question is: how much are insurance companies paying Gilead per pill?