Treatment for Hepatitis C became drastically more affordable this week when four new-generation medicines were added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
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But the news prescriptions will cost as little as $6.20 has come too late for some "buyers' club" members who have paid up to $3000 a pop.
The government's resolution to list the drugs means Australians with Hep C now pay just $6.20 a prescription if they are a concession card holder or $38.30 for general patients, saving patients as much as $100,0000 for treatment.
Clinicians across the country shelled out millions of dollars in prescriptions on Tuesday March 1, during the first 24 hours of the listing, securing medications which work faster, achieve higher cure rates and have far fewer side effects than any previous treatment.
Demand for the breakthrough drugs has been huge but the Health Minister Sussan Ley was quick to quell concerns about supply.
"Both patients and prescribers have keenly anticipated the availability of these new medicines, so it is little surprise to see a rapid uptake by patients," she said.
"We expect as pent-up demand is met the rate of prescribing will reduce over time."
51-year-old Canberran Simon has had Hepatitis C for 33 years and is five weeks into the 12-week treatment he hopes will rid him of it for good.
"It was so disheartening when it wasn't listed for PBS funding in December, as had been expected, I thought I'd just buy it myself," he said.
In December 2015 he joined the FixHepC Buyer's Club and spent $2300 to personally import chemicals from China, which through the club were tested for purity, compounded, encapsulated and delivered to him as a generic version of Sofosbuvir and Ledipasvir (Harvoni).
The most debilitating part of having Hep C was trying the old-style interferon and ribavirin-based treatments, Simon said.
"It was really hideous," he said. "I had hair loss, mouth ulcers, anaemia, my vision was affected, receding gums, mental health issues."
He said by comparison the mild nausea associated with his current treatment was a walk in the park.
Caroline, 44, paid $1600 for Daclatasvir (Sovaldi) and Sofosbuvir (Daklinza) generics and said she was aware of six others in the ACT who took the leap to order through the FixHepC buyers' club before the announcement.
"I paid for the drugs and a week later it was announced they would be put on the PBS, but it doesn't bother me," she said.
"For the first time with the Hep C, after 22 years, I was able take control and do something for me."
FixHepC's Dr James Freeman said what began with one patient grew into a buyer's club that provided more than 1000 Australians with these drugs when they were financially out of reach.
"As a doctor you primary duty is first do no harm, but this was a case of looking at the harm of doing nothing," he said.
He said FixHepC was not the only buyers' club in operation and estimated more than 2000 Australians secured the four medicines in this way.
Dr Freeman the aim was to forge a legal pathway and create an realistic treatment option that wasn't within reach within the health system.
Hepatitis ACT executive director John Didlick said the PBS listing of the drugs was a watershed moment.
The listing of the cures was of a $1.6 billion the Turnbull government invested in its recent MYEFO update.
Mr Didlick said for the first time in decades there was great potential to eradicate the deadly and debilitating disease which affected one in every 100 Australians.
"It's now affordable, accessible, safe and fair," he said.
"It's an example of the health system operating in the way it should."
