Telaprevir Over Boceprevir?

Related Updates; May 2011
FDA OKs Telaprevir for Hep C; Financial Assistance/Prescribing Information
Vicrelis/Boceprevir IS NOW FDA Approved May 13 2011
Getting Ready; Telaprevir or Boceprevir ?
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Today From Boston (TheStreet) -- Reported on Telaprevir at the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD). The article is presented for investors, but has data we all can use.

Adam Feuerstein writes;" Vertex Pharmaceuticals: Telaprevir was the superior hepatitis C drug coming into AASLD and no data or information released over the weekend, including from Merck and its competing drug boceprevir, changed that view. If there's a debate left to have about telaprevir vs. boceprevir in hepatitis C, it's forecasting the market share each drug may garner once both are approved next year".

The investors are waiting for physicians/researchers to see all the data from the phase III studies which will be presented on Monday and Tuesday at the AASLD.

Mr. Feuerstein also remarked on Mercks/boceprevir press released on Saturday. AASLD:Hepatitis C Boceprevir Achieved Significantly Higher Sustained Virologic Response Rates Compared to Control

He wrote they had a lot of statistics but the overall profile of boceprevir was not quite as good as telaprevir. He is waiting for Monday/Tuesday for updates on why the analysis summarized appears to exclude certain patients. He writes " Boceprevir's overall cure rate for treatment-naive Hep C patients ranged from 63-66%, with the proportion of patients eligible for shortened therapy 44%. The cure rate was high (87% for African-American/Blacks and 97% for non-African Americans) for those patients that did receive shortened therapy due to an early and robust response to boceprevir. When these "treatment resistant" patients were re-treated with boceprevir, cure rates ranged from 59% to 66% compared to 21% of patients re-treated with just standard of care.
Vertex has data on telaprevir in similar hard-to-treat patients that is superior to boceprevir, with cure rates of 65% overall that included patients much more resistant to therapy than those enrolled in Merck's boceprevir study. When similar treatment-resistant patients are compared across both studies, boceprevir's 66% cure rate falls short of telaprevir's 78% cure rate. Vertex is not presenting its telaprevir data in treatment resistant patients at this year's AASLD meeting.

The article also covers Gilead Sciences, and Dr. John McHutchison who has joined the company. Dr. McHutchison gave investors a detailed look at the Hepatitis C drug development efforts. Other drugs were touched on such as RG7128 , IDX184 and TMC435. You may want to go take a look at his article.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10905966/1/hep-c-update-vertex-merck-and-gilead.html?puc=_tscrss