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A drug that costs $1000-per-pill is quickly becoming the new treatment of choice for a liver-wasting viral disease, hepatitis C. The disease currently affects more than 3 million Americans. 

Prescriptions for the drug called Sovaldi have eclipsed all other hepatitis C pills combined in less than six months.

The main enticing reason is the promise of a real cure with fewer side effects, the press release added. Further the release added that it's by far the strongest launch of any similar drug. 

The soaring success of the drug has also brought the manufacturer Gilead Sciences Inc., based in California, under scrutiny. According to the press release, two senior senators are raising questions about documents suggesting that drug developers initially considered a much lower price.

"You can't put too fine a point on the sort of moral dilemma that we have here," said Michael Kleinrock, director of the IMS Institute, which studies prescription drug trends, according to AbcNews. "This is something that the research-based pharmaceutical industry reaches for all the time: a cure. But when they achieve one, can we afford it?"

The manufacturer recently reported its profits more than quadrupled in the second three months of this year.