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New Drugs for Dealing with Hepatitis C cirrhosis and liver disease

By: Joe Healy

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Data presented at a medical meeting beginning today, advised that Vertex Pharmaceuticals has developed an experimental drug, which is used to treat a resistant to treatment form of hepatitis C. The presentation revealed that the drug helped cure over 60 percent of patients suffering with the otherwise difficult to treat form of the disease.

Related Times Health Guide: Hepatitis C

The results, eagerly awaited by Wall Street as well as by doctors, represent the highest cure rate yet reported for the condition -- and the treatment was accomplished in half the usual time.

Vertex may find a competitor Romark Laboratories, a small, privately held company which markets a drug called Alina that treats diarrhea cased by certain parasites, but also appear to be effective in treating hepatitis C.
In a presentation that has escaped the attention of Wall Street, though it is to be made at the same meeting, researchers are to report that Alinia helped cure as many as 79 percent of hepatitis C patients, although they had a form of the virus that might be slightly easier to treat than the type Vertex took on.
"There will be skepticism because this has come out of right field," said Dr. Emmet B. Keeffe is a consultant for Romark and also the head of hepatology at Stanford college. but Doctor! Keeffe said that he had overcome his own initial skepticism and that the results were "pretty exciting.Hepatitis C,Liver Disease, HCV, cirrhosis

Both developments, experts said, will need to be followed up by larger trials. However progress is vital to patients. Cirrhosis and liver cancer caused by hapatitis C is on the rise in the more than three million americans that are currently infected with the disease.

The current treatment of alpha interferon and ribavirin can cause debilitating side effects such as flu-like symptoms, anemia, and depression. Type one Hepatitis C, is difficult and timely to treat -treatment often lasts a year- accounts for approximately 70 percent of cases in the United States.
Vertex, based in Cambridge, Mass., a publicly traded company is on an intense hunt for new drugs., is commonly recognized as the leader in it's field. Interfering with a viral enzyme is a dose, titled telaprevir or VX-950. Most AIDS drugs work in this fashion, but this is a completely new approach to treat hepatitis C.

While Vertex has previously shown that telaprevir can sharply reduce virus levels in patients' blood, the new data, to be presented at the meeting, an annual gathering of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in Boston, is the first strong signal of how many patients could be cured.
In a midstage trial in the United States of 250 previously untreated patients, 61 percent of the people who received telaprevir in addition to the two standard drugs had no detectable virus in their blood 24 weeks after the end of the treatment, a Vertex executive said. The effective cure is considered by Doctor's

In Europe the three-drug combination experimental treatment, of 323 patients proved that 65 percent of them had no dectecable viruses left.
The typical cure rate for standard drugs alone is now 40 to 50 percent for type 1 hepatitis C, but using these two new drugs have actually gotten higher results. Doctors have said that the fact that the treatment took half the time -- 24 weeks instead of the customary 48 -- was also an important factor. That denotes that for a brief period the side effects of interferon and ribavirin have to be tolerated by the patients.

"The findings are fascinating indeed," said Doctor M.Ira Jacobson of weill cornell Medical college will present the results of the American trial and consultant to Vertex.

Wall Street anticipated these numbers. Those who received the standard course of treatment experienced less side effects than those who were given a combination of the three drugs. The trials' cure rates for the standard therapy are not yet available.

Romark's data comes from a study done in Egypt in which the patient sample was limited to a mere 96 previously untreated individuals. Alinia, or nitazoxnice, had also been tested for treating parasites.
In just 12 weeks after finishing their care of Alinia and two other standard drugs, 79 percent no longer had the virus. In comparison, the control group receiving the standard treatment was 43 percent. While the total treatment lasted the usual 48 weeks, the patients received the two standard drugs for only 36 weeks.

Though it is rare in the US, the patients were all diagnosed with type 4 hepatitis C. According to few experts type 1 was a bit harder as compared to type 4. Romark is currently based in Tampa in Florida., has started a clinical trial in the US, and has already generated about $20 million in yearly revenue.
The drug that helps fight against Hepatitis C was accidently stumbled upon. Liver Disease,Cirrhosis,Hepatitis C,HCV

Physician Alinia is already on market and appear to have some side effects.Keffe is reseaching how the Romark drug works and is saying that some doctors might prescribe Alinia off label to treat hepatitis C. The daily requirement of two pills costs about $30.00. It is eligible for nurses to write medication for uses other than those the Food and Drug Administration has passed for approval, but a drug creator is not allowed to increase the level of medicines for those wrong label uses before formal allowance from others.
"We're all looking for better therapy for our patients, and this looks like a very benign thing to do,Hepatitis C,Liver Disease, HCV, cirrhosis Dr. Keeffe said that HCV which is a liver disease called Hepatitis C and can cause cirrosis.
But Physician Jacobson of Cornell said that would be "very premature."
Hepatitis C  Website

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Joe Healy is an expert on Hepatitis C

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