Vertex reduces treatment period in Hepatitis C

On April 14th, a New York based pharmaceutical company revealed data which showed a significant reduction in the treatment time of Hepatitis C due to drugs experimented by them. These treatment drugs can help reduce the length of time for which patients get treated due to this serious liver disease.

Vertex pharmaceuticals conducted a study, by using drugs and combination of drugs in order to find out ways to lessen the treatment time for Hepatitis C. The company reported that 11 percent of the people who participated in the study, dropped out earlier due to some adverse effects of the drugs being used could be a matter of concern for the physicians and investors both.

VX-950, the drug being tested in combination with two other medicines, which are the standard current treatment for Hepatitis C, which according to the researchers, can radically reduce the time of treatment.

According to one of the study’s lead investigators, Dr. Ira Jacobson, while giving a telephonic interview from Barcelona commented that “this drug has an enormous amount of promise”.

The current estimated time for Hepatitis C treatment with standard drugs being used is 48 weeks, the investigators hope that with the usage of this drug along with the standard treatment, it can reduce the time by half, due to the use of Vertex’s new drug, not only the time be shortened, but also, it will help the patients to properly complete their treatment with minimum discomfort, as mostly such as Interferon, are very difficult to tolerate for a long time by the patients.

Out of 175 patients, who were tested with Vertex’s new drug, 79 percent of them were reported to have achieved an detectable level of the virus in their bodies after almost four weeks of the treatment.

According to the spokesman of the company, full results of the drug will not be available until the end of the year, as the company is still carrying out further investigations and trials on the drug, until then, it is not possible to give a final concluding review on the drug. After the completion of the tests and trial by the company, the case of the drug will be ready for approval to be used as standard treatment for Hepatitis C.