Monday, March 11, 2013

Telaprevir shows promise in black patients with genotype 1 HCV

Telaprevir shows promise in black patients with genotype 1 HCV
March 11, 2013
ATLANTA — Preliminary data presented here at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections show that combination telaprevir treatment may be effective in black null responder patients with chronic genotype 1 hepatitis C.

Researchers from Northwestern University and Vertex Pharmaceuticals are conducting the OUTLOOK study, which is a single-arm, open-label, phase 4 study that includes black patients who were previously treated for chronic genotype 1 HCV. None of the 34 patients had achieved a sustained virologic response after treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin. For this study, all patients received pegylated interferon and ribavirin for 48 weeks and telaprevir (Incivek, Vertex) for 12 weeks.
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Spending on HCV, specialty medications rose sharply in 2012
March 11, 2013
Consumer spending on drugs to treat complex illnesses, particularly hepatitis C, increased substantially during 2012, while costs for traditional prescription drugs declined, according to a recent report.

The report, published by Express Scripts, indicated that total spending on prescription drugs decreased by 1.5% during 2012, marking the first such reduction in more than 20 years. Spending on specialty medications for complex illnesses that included hepatitis C, however, increased by 18.4% among commercially insured patients, compared with a 17.1% increase in 2011.
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