PHILADELPHIA — Researchers at Penn Medicine,
in collaboration with a multi-center international team, have shown
that a protease inhibitor, simeprevir, a once a day pill, along with
interferon and ribavirin has proven as effective in treating chronic
Hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) as telaprevir with interferon and
ribavirin, the standard of care in developing countries. Further,
simeprevir proved to be simpler for patients and had fewer adverse
events. The complete study is now available online and is scheduled to
publish in January 2015 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
“The observations from the study present simeprevir,
peginterferon and ribavirin as a good therapeutic option for regions of
the world where all-oral therapies are unavailable or cost prohibitive,”
says Rajender Reddy, MD, professor of Medicine and director of
Hepatology the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of
Pennsylvania. “This is the only study we are aware of that directly
compares telaprevir to simeprevir.” Telaprevir, another protease
inhibitor, is an oral HCV medication taken up to three times daily, has
multiple side effects and is less accessible than simeprevir. Simeprevir
is manufactured by Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
In the U.S. and other countries where access to the latest research
and treatment for HCV is available, physicians have moved towards
all-oral therapy and away from interferon-based therapies such as these,
as they are known to come with a significant number of side effects and
are not as effective.
Read more...Labels: Access, cost-effectveness, developing countries, global access, simeprevir + interferon + ribavirin