New Drug Combination Found to Have High Cure Rates for Hepatitis C

First Posted: Apr 20, 2016 06:00 AM EDT
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A hepatitis C treatment drug that is being developed by AbbVie Inc. shows very high cure rates among a wide range of disease genotypes. Data revealed that the company will have a more competitive product than expected if approved.

The once-a-day drug combination showed 97 to 100 percent cure rate over the span of eight to 12 weeks of treatment. This was achieved during the clinical trials with the one pill, once-a-day combination of ABT-493 and ABT-530 which uses different methods to stop virus replication, Yahoo Finance reports.

The drug is expected to give higher convenience for different patients than AbbVie's Viekira Pak. This will improve the chances of penetrating into the market that is currently dominated by Gilead Sciences Inc.

According to Medical Daily, Viekira Pak was approved for genotype 1, which is the most common form of liver disease in the United States. This consists of four drugs and requires patients to take three pills in the morning and one in the evening. The drug currently has 5 percent of the market while Gilead owns almost 90 percent of it. Another AbbVie product is capable of treating genotype 4 which is most common in Egypt and other parts of Africa.

However, the new pill combination is proven effective to treat the whole spectrum of genotypes 1-6 with an ongoing study presented at a European liver disease meeting in Barcelona, Spain. The ongoing study showed that patients with normal liver whom the drugs did not help suffering from genotype 1 were 97 percent hepatitis C virus free after 12 weeks of completing the drug combination therapy. It was also found that patients with genotype 2 were 98 percent virus free after completing the drug therapy. Experts stated that having no detectable trace of the virus in the blood means the patient is already cured.

For other patients with genotype 3 without cirrhosis who underwent treatment for the first time, the cure rate was as high as 97 percent after eight weeks of therapy. 100 percent was achieved after 12 weeks of treatment in patients with genotype 3 with cirrhosis, and those patients with genotype 4, 5 and 6 without liver cirrhosis.

"These new data show us the potential of ABT-493 and ABT-530 in genotype 3 patients new to therapy even with the added complication of compensated cirrhosis," Dr. Paul Kwo, one of the lead investigators and professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

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