标题: Boehringer Ingelheim Hepatitis C Drugs Cured 82% in Trial [打印本页] 作者: StephenW 时间: 2012-4-19 18:41 标题: Boehringer Ingelheim Hepatitis C Drugs Cured 82% in Trial
Boehringer Ingelheim Hepatitis C Drugs Cured 82% in Trial
By Makiko Kitamura - Apr 19, 2012 7:00 PM ET
April 19 (Bloomberg) --Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH said itsexperimental hepatitis C oral treatment cleared the virus in asmany as 82 percent of patients in a study.
The mid-stage Sound-C2 trial followed 362 patients whohadn’t received other treatments before taking the Ingelheim,Germany-based drugmaker’s BI 201335 protease inhibitor and BI207127 polymerase inhibitor combined with ribavirin.
Researchers reported an 82 percent cure rate among patientswith the most common type of hepatitis C after 28 weeks oftreatment, Boehringer said today at the European Association forthe Study of the Liver annual meeting in Barcelona. Among allpatients studied, 68 percent were cured.
The trial didn’t include interferon, an injected drug whichis combined with ribavirin and a protease inhibitor as thecurrent standard of care. Protease inhibitors block the actionof the protease enzyme that the hepatitis virus needs toreplicate, stopping it from spreading. Drugmakers includingGilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY) are alsoseeking to remove interferon from the treatment regimen becauseof flu-like side effects.
“Eliminating interferon from HCV treatment is an urgentneed,” Stefan Zeuzem, chief of the department of medicine atJohann Wolfgang Goethe University Hospital in Frankfurt and leadinvestigator of the study, said in a statement. “Releasingpatients from the side effects and the lengthy treatmentcommitment seen with interferon would be a huge advance.”
Abbott’s Test Results Earlier this month, Abbott Laboratories (ABT) said itsexperimental hepatitis C treatment, combining the ABT-450protease inhibitor, ABT-333 NS5B polymerase inhibitor, ritonavirand ribavirin, cured 47 percent of patients who couldn’teliminate the virus with prior therapies. Those who had neverbeen treated had a cure rate of 93 percent to 95 percent, theU.S. company said.
Hepatitis C affects as many as 170 million people globally,putting them at risk of developing liver cancer, according tothe World Health Organization. The growing population ofpatients infected with the virus spurred Gilead’s decision inNovember to buy experimental hepatitis C-treatment makerPharmasset Inc. for $10.8 billion and Bristol-Myers’sacquisition in February of Inhibitex Inc. for $2.5 billion.
The disease is most commonly transmitted throughcontaminated blood transfusions, organ transplants, contaminatedsyringes and needle-injected drug use, according to the WHO.
To contact the reporter on this story:Makiko Kitamura in Barcelona via [email protected] 作者: StephenW 时间: 2012-4-19 18:42
勃林格殷格翰丙型肝炎药物治愈82％，在审判
田中真纪子北村 - 2012年04月19日下午7:00 ET