New medications to treat Hepatitis C, liver disease, and cirrhosis.
Data from today's medical meeting shows that better than 60% of patients with a resistant strain of hepatitis C treated with an experimental drug from Vertex Pharmaceuticals were cured.
Hepatitis C
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Times Health Guide: Hepatitis C
The highest cure rate reported so far for the condition was spotlighted when Wall Street and doctors awaited the results, and the treatment worked half the time.
Vertex, however, may not stand alone in the spotlight since Romark Laboratoies, though a small privately held company, already sells Alina, a drug that has been used to treat diarrhea caused by parasites but that is now being looked at as a possible treatment for hepatitis C.
Researchers will report, escaping Wall Street's attention, that the drug Alina has aided in curing up to 79% of Hepatitis C patients, although their virus strain may have been weaker than that of which the drug Vertex cured.
“There will be skepticism because this has come out of right field,Hepatitis C,Liver Disease, HCV, cirrhosis said Physician Emmet B. The consultant to Romark is, Stanford's chief of hepatology, Keefe. But Dr. In regard to his cirrhosis of the liver, Keefe acknowledged that the results were very promising and that he overcome his first misdoubts.According to experts, larger trials will be needed to follow up both developments. Patients will feel that the progress being made is one of the most important factors. At least three million Americans are thought to be infected with the hepatitis C virus. The number of cases of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer caused by the virus is rising as well.
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The existing treatment — a combination of two drugs, alpha interferon and ribavirin — can cause debilitating side effects like flulike symptoms, anemia and depression. Type 1 Hepatitis C, which makes up 70% of the cases in the United States, can be difficult to treat and treatment can take nearly a year.
So the hunt for new drugs has been intense, and Vertex, a publicly traded company based in Cambridge, Mass.It is known everywhere as the first in line. In pill form it is labelled telaprevir or VX-950, and it works by interfering with a viral enzyme. Most AIDS drugs work in this fashion, but this is a completely new approach to treat hepatitis C.
New information expected to be presented at the forthcoming meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases which is held in Boston, will demonstrate evidence that telaprevir, which has previously been shown to decrease virus levels in the bloodstream, could cure many patients.
In a midstage trial in the United States of 250 previously untreated patients, 61 percent of the people who received telaprevir in addition to the two standard drugs had no detectable virus in their blood 24 weeks after the end of the treatment, a Vertex executive said. The effective cure is considered by Doctor's
In a European trial of 323 patients, about 65 percent of those who got the three-drug combination had no detectable virus 12 weeks after the end of treatment.
There is a greater incidence for these 2 cure rates compared to the forty to fifty percent cure rate which is usually seen for type one hepatitis C when administering the normal drugs by themselves. Doctors also thought it was important that the treatment itself lasted only 24 weeks instead of 48. That means patients would have to endure the side effects of interferon and ribavirin for a shorter time.
The doctor remarked,"These are interesting discoveries." M.Ira Jacobson of Weill Cornell Medical College, who will present the results of the American trial at the meeting and is a consultant to Vertex.
But the numbers are pretty much what Wall Street expected. Those who received the standard course of treatment experienced less side effects than those who were given a combination of the three drugs. The rate of cures resulting from the standard therapy used in trials is not yet available.
Romark's data comes from a study done in Egypt in which the patient sample was limited to a mere 96 previously untreated individuals. Another thing that has aslo been tested as a possible treatment to parasites is ALinia, which is also known as nitazoxanide.
HCV
In just 12 weeks after finishing their care of Alinia and two other standard drugs, 79 percent no longer had the virus. We see a contrast there when we look at the control group who did not receive the experimental treatment -- their result level was 43%. Even though the overall treatment was for 48 weeks, the drugs were only given to the patient for 36 weeks.
In the United States, type 4 hepatitis C is rare, but these patients were diagnosed with it. A few esperts responded with the theory that Type 4 may be easier to treat then type 1 Romark, which is based in Tampa, Fla.They have begun a trial in the U.S., bringing a $20 million anual revenue to the table.
It was sheer serendipity that the drug's efficacy combating hepatitis C was found out. When tested as a treatment for parasites, the drug showed signs it was countering liver infection.
Physician Because Alinia is already on the market and seems to have a low amount of side effects some doctors may prescribe it off label for the treatment of hepatitis C is what Keeffe, a researcher of the Romark drug has said. It costs about $30 a day for the two pills needed. It is legal for doctors to prescribe medicines for uses other than those the Food and Drug Administration has approved, but a drug maker cannot promote its medicines for those off-label uses before formal approval.
“We’re all looking for better therapy for our patients, and this looks like a very benign thing to do,” Doctor Keeffe stated.
but Doctor! "That would be very immature", the person, Jacobson of Cornell commented.