Xconomy: Vertex Maps Out Combo Drug Game Plan for Treating Hepatitis C
Summary
Vertex Maps Out Combo Drug Game Plan for Treating Hepatitis C (Page 2 of 2) the clinical trial that will test this idea.Kauffman didn’t give an exact number, but he noted that a little more than 80 percent of people in one previous Vertex study with telaprevir and the standard drugs have had undetectable amounts of virus in their blood for a full 24 weeks after completing their course of therapy.“It’s a leap that has to be made, and we want to be the first to make it.” There are plenty of tough competitors chasing the same goal, although they are all attacking the problem in slightly different ways, Kauffman says.Others are sure to question the data that comes from a regimen lacking in the standard therapy, wondering whether those two drugs can produce a long-lasting cure, or whether the virus will bounce back.Vertex says it is confident that if its combo drug can eradicate the virus for 24 weeks after therapy, then it will have achieved a long-lasting clinical cure.