Roche’s hepatitis C drug shows “strong antiviral activity”

Roche has announced that a new drug it has been developing for the treatment of hepatitis C, named R1626, has shown a significant antiviral effect.

The firm states that its study involving 47 patients, shows that R1626 reduces viral load in patients with the genotype 1 virus of chronic hepatitis C, while the level of reduction produced is the highest found in the class of polymerase inhibitor treatments.

Dr Stuart Roberts, director of Gastroenterology at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia and lead investigator of the study, said that the addition of the drug to current treatments for hepatitis C could possibly result in higher cure rates.

“The results from this phase I study show us that the polymerase inhibitor R1626 is very effective in inhibiting hepatitis C viral replication,” he commented

“In fact, the drop in hepatitis C virus is the best that we have seen with all the polymerase inhibitors studied so far.”

Roche recently announced that it had achieved record sales during the first nine months of the year, demonstrating growth of 21 per cent in its pharmaceutical sales.