Bristol-Myers Squibb: Hepatitis B drug beats competitor

Bristol-Myers Squibb has said that its treatment for hepatitis B, Baraclude, has demonstrated a greater capacity to reduce viral load levels in patients than adefovir, the antiviral therapy produced by Gilead Sciences.

The claim comes following the publication of clinical trial results involving 65 antiviral therapy-naive chronic hepatitis-B patients, which showed that patients taking Baraclude displayed an increase in the reduction of their viral load levels after 12 and 24 weeks of treatment, in comparison to the group taking adefovir.

To compare, 45 per cent of Baraclude patients achieved “undetectable” viral load levels after 24 weeks, compared to 13 per cent of adefovir patients.

Achieving this level of viral load frequency in hepatitis B patients is the “goal” of healthcare professionals prescribing antiviral therapies, according to Nancy Leung of the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital of Hong Kong.

She said: “In this study, the first comparing the antiviral treatments Baraclude and adefovir, treatment with Baraclude led to greater viral load reductions at both 12 and 24 weeks.”

Recently, Bristol-Myers Squibb welcomed the decision from the Scottish Medicines Consortium to approve Baraclude for treating chronic hepatitis B in the NHS Scotland – “great news” for patients, according to David Veitch, general manager of Bristol-Myers Squibb UK. The drug was launched in Britain in September.