But early data suggest that in combination with interferon and ribavirin, cure rates for hep-C approach 60%.
"A lot of the treatment shifting to combination therapy is shifting to treatment with ribavirin, " says Gemayel.
Bristol's studies include a regimen that eliminates ribavirin, which will reduce side effects such as anemia and depression.
The label for Victrelis says to give patients one month of interferon and ribavirin first, then start the drug.
It is also vital that Pegasys be approved in combination with Roche's Copegus, a proprietary ribavirin (or anti-viral) drug.
But interferon-ribavirin regimens clear the most common strain only half the time at most and cause an array of nasty side effects.
The investigators recruited 832 patients aged 18 years or more with chronic HCV who had not been treated with interferon or ribavirin.
Markowitz says the drug has modest potency, but is undergoing a trial in combination with interferon and ribavirin that may show better results.
The current treatment for hepatitis C combines interferon drugs sold by Roche and Merck with an antiviral medicine called ribavirin in an 11-month course.
The 12 patients who took Vertex's drug in combination with interferon and ribavirin showed no sign of the virus after four weeks of treatment.
Existing drug regimens are based on various genetically engineered versions of the natural immune system protein alpha interferon combined with a second chemical, ribavirin.
Schering locked up the exclusive rights to ribavirin and sold it only in tandem with interferon, making it tough for rivals to match the therapy.
Both drugs are used in combination with another compound, ribavirin, and there is no proof that Pegasys is more effective or has fewer side effects.
Also, 24 of 26 patients who received telaprevir in early-stage trials were cured of hepatitis C after six additional months of treatment with interferon and ribavirin.
In justifying his strong buy rating on the company, Carl Byrns at Dain Rauscher Wessels points to an anti-viral drug: Peg-intron plus ribavirin combination therapy for Hepatitis C.
That might sound mundane, but the existing drugs used to treat hepatitis C, ribavirin and pegylated interferon, cause anemia and fatigue and must be taken for 48 weeks.
Already, there is an expectation that Merck will be able to gain pricing and marketing advantages because it sells the current standard of care drugs, ribavirin and pegylated interferon.
FORBES: Merck Wins Victory Over Skeptics With Hepatitis C Approval
Roche, which already sells pegylated interferon (Pegasys) and ribavirin (Copegus), announced in May that in a small early-stage trial its polymerase inhibitor was effective in significantly reducing the viral load.
Thirty-one percent of telaprevir patients who had gotten no benefit at all from previous treatments with the current hepatitis C regimen, a combination of interferon and antiviral drug ribavirin, had SVRs.
Some doctors had reported positive results using ribavirin, an anti-viral medicine used mostly against hepatitis C, as a treatment for SARS patients who had been worst-hit by the disease in Hong Kong and elsewhere.
Its main product will be an antiviral drug called ribavirin, which is being marketed by Schering-Plough (nyse: SGP - news - people) as part of a combination therapy for hepatitis C.
Writing in the Lancet medical journal, researchers from The International Hepatitis Interventional Therapy Group report a new treatment for chronic HCV infection that uses a combination of interferon alpha-2b and a drug called ribavirin.
Most patients taking PEG-Intron are given the drug packaged with Ribapharm 's (nyse: RNA - news - people ) ribavirin drug--the combination therapy can get rid of hepatitis C entirely in many patients.
The goal, Gilead said in its press release, is to create an all-oral treatment for hepatitis C that would replace the difficult treatment with injected interferon and ribavirin, an antiviral pill, along with the fatigue and other side effects they cause.
FORBES: Gilead Tries To Revive Itself With $11 Billion Purchase Of Pharmasset
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