We are grateful to Drs Aghemo and Colombo for the concise summary of our recent paper, and read with great interest their insightful comment that deals with the implications from our study, which demonstrated extrahepatic effectiveness of interferon (IFN)-based therapy (Gut 2015;64:495–503), in the era of IFN-free treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. We agree with their opinion that these findings are instrumental in advocating a broaden access to effective HCV treatment, and would like to share our perspectives on this matter in response.