Bristol-Myers Squibb announces Baraclude restart results

Bristol-Myers Squibb has announced the results of a study of the use of Baraclude (entecavir) in nucleoside-naive HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B patients at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in Barcelona.

Baraclude is a prescription drug indicated for chronic infection with hepatitis B in adults where the virus damages the liver, though the compound does not affect the spread of the virus to others or cure the condition.

The study showed that these patients previously taking Baraclude who exhibited a recurrence of the hepatitis B virus in the blood following a stop in treatment showed viral suppression and normalisation of liver enzyme (ALT) after restarting treatment with the compound.

Hakan Senturk, MD of the Istanbul University Cerrahpasa Tip Fak, said: “This study showed that when treated again with Baraclude for 48 weeks, patients achieved responses similar to those seen prior to treatment interruption.”

He added that safety results for the re-taking of the compound were similar to those previously reported by patients.

In October 2006, Bristol-Myers Squibb presented the results of a three-year study of Baraclude, revealing that the incidence of resistance to the compound was “low”, with less than one per cent of patients experiencing viral rebound as a result of the drug by week 144 of the analysis.