Johnson and Johnson announces telaprevir interim results

Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Tibotec and Vertex Pharmaceuticals have announced the results of an interim safety analysis from the Prove 1 phase IIb clinical study of telaprevir (VX-950).

Telaprevir is an orally administered hepatitis C virus (HCV) protease inhibitor. It aims to inhibit the enzyme necessary for replication of HCV.

Following a collaboration agreement signed earlier this year, the companies are currently in partnership to develop the compound in Europe, South America, Australia, the Middle East and some parts of Asia.

Roger Pomerantz, president of research and development at Tibotec: “Chronic hepatitis C infection is a major public health problem and our goal is to increase the success rate of hepatitis C treatment with short-duration therapy.”

He added that the recently presented interim analysis of this clinical trial is “an important step” towards the development of the compound that suggested the start of larger phase III clinical studies investigating the efficacy and safety of the drug.

In April 2002, Tibotec and its HIV/Aids management spin-off company Virco were acquired by Johnson & Johnson. Following the acquisition, the company became a fully integrated enterprise focussed on novel drug discovery and development in the infectious diseases sector.