Direct antiviral drugs for hep C are only now coming out after over a decade of work.
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Vertex has already surmounted an array of problems since it started working on hep C in 1993.
Another approach to combating hep C is to stop the virus from replicating by attacking enzymes that let it do so.
Vertex has a drug in the pipeline called telaprevir that it hopes will be the first in a new, more powerful generation of hep C treatments.
And a company called Romark Laboratories has come out of nowhere with data on an unheralded anti-parasite drug that seems effective on one hep C strain.
Existing hep C treatments, based on bioengineered versions of the natural immune system protein alpha interferon, attack the virus indirectly and work half the time, at best, for the most common strain.
Neither did it hear grand jury evidence detailing the reckless practices at Desert Shadow, such as reusing cleaning fluids for surgical instruments, that easily could have spread Hep C among the patients.
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Joining in the hep C bonanza: Schaffer P.
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Despite this, the plaintiffs argued, a nurse anesthetist at Desert Shadow injected a Hep C-infected patient with Propofol, then returned the syringe to the bottle, infecting the contents, before using another syringe to inject Chanin.
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Mr Maguire claims the Lord Advocate and Mr Kerr were in breach of Article 2 of the European Court of Human Rights as they failed to hold a prompt inquiry into the deaths of people who contracted Hep C.
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Henry Chanin, the headmaster of a private school in Nevada, went in for a routine colonoscopy in 2006 and emerged with a dose of Hep C, a usually incurable disease that can progress to cirrhosis, liver cancer and death.
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And refusing to grant a new trial after the doctor in charge of the colonoscopy clinic was indicted, less than a month after the verdict, for endangering the safety of patients by ordering employees to use unclean instruments that could transmit Hep C.
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On its own, Zadaxin works wonders on hep-B though it showed little promise with hep-C.
But early data suggest that in combination with interferon and ribavirin, cure rates for hep-C approach 60%.
Protease inhibitors shut down AIDS enzymes by locking onto readily available toeholds, but hep-C's protease is smooth.
In the race pitting science against microbes, however, the spread of hep-C looks likely to outrun a cure.
Some smaller biotechs hope to provide a third ingredient in a hep-C cocktail.
Unlike HIV, which lives in the nucleus of the cell, hep-C sets up shop outside the nucleus in the cytoplasm.
Separately they have little effect, but together they prevent hep-C from spreading by causing it to make defective virus cells.
The Centers for Disease Control says up to 10, 000 people died from hep-C last year and that, by 2010, the annual death toll will overtake that of HIV.
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