Hepatitis C treatment decisions revealed

Decision Resources has revealed that the effect on sustained virologic response of a therapy in patients with genotype-1 hepatitis C is the most important factors affecting prescription decisions for treatment of the disease.

Following a study of clinical data and expert opinion, the research firm noted that a combination of Vertex/Johnson & Johnson’s telaprevir and Schering-Plough’s boceprevir together with interferon-alpha plus ribavirin have advantages over Roche’s Pagasys plus ribavirin, which is currently the sales leader in treatment for the disease.

As well as this, the latest study from Decision Resources indicates that Albuferon plus ribavirin plus telaprevir is set to become the clinical gold standard from 2011 following clinical approvals for the drug.

“Albuferon provides a dosing advantage over the current pegylated interferons and the addition of a protease inhibitor to interferon/ribavirin therapy appears to improve efficacy,” said the director of Decision Resources John Lebbos.

Other recent studies from the research firm indicate that a new therapy from Merck is likely to become the gold standard for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting by 2011.