Bristol-Myers’s Once-Daily Hepatitis C Drug Cures 83% of People in Study

[pinto]

Bristol-Myers’s Once-Daily Hepatitis C Drug Cures 83% of People in Study

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY)’s experimental hepatitis C drug worked in combination with two established medicines to cure as many as 83 percent of patients, a study found.

The trial tested three doses of the drug, called BMS-790052, with peginterferon and ribavirin, the standard treatment. Pills with the two highest doses cured 83 percent of patients 24 weeks after the treatment was completed, compared with 25 percent for those on the current therapies and a placebo, the New York-based company said in a statement today at ICAAC, the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, in Chicago.

Two hepatitis C drugs, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (VRTX)’s Incivek and Merck & Co.’s Victrelis, were approved in May by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the first for the illness in more than a decade. Those treatments are given three times a day; BMS-790052 is taken in one daily dose, said Douglas Manion, vice president of development and virology for Bristol-Myers.

“The new standard of care should be 60 to 80 percent cure rates,” Manion said in a telephone interview.

more at -

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-17/bristol-myers-s-once-daily-hepatitis-c-drug-cures-83-of-people-in-study.html

[bemildred]

1. +1. nt

[laconicsax]

2. K&R