Vertex Pharmaceuticals | Bringing to Market a New Treatment for Hepatitis C
Hepatitis C impacts more than 3.9 million people in the U.S. and can lead to many serious health issues, including liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, and the need for a liver transplant. What’s worse is that tens of thousands of affected individuals have been treated with standard medications – unsuccessfully. As a result, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company based in Cambridge, MA, is on a quest to fight Hepatitis C – and help those suffering from this chronic liver disease.
The standard treatment for Hepatitis C is a combination of Pegylated Interferon Alpha and Ribavirin. However, in a study conducted by Vertex, by combining the standard treatment with the company’s oral virus treatment, Telaprevir, 65% of patients – who didn’t to respond at all to a prior round of the standard drugs – were cured. Those results greatly exceeded the comparison group, in which approximately 17% percent of patients were cured through the standard treatment alone. More than 660 patients took part in the study, called “Realize.”
The results from “Realize” support data that came out of two other Vertex studies. In May 2010, the company conducted a study of more than 1,000 patients. Their results concluded that three-quarters of patients who received a combination of both the standard treatment, along with Telaprevir, were cured. Likewise, in the fall of 2010, Vertex released results from a study indicating that the treatment time for Hepatitis C could be cut in half with the help of Telaprevir.
In late 2010, Vertex won priority review from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Telaprevir. And in January 2011, Vertex announced that both regulators in the United States and Canada will accelerate their reviews of the drug. That means Telaprevir could be approved sometime in May – bringing hope to those suffering from Hepatitis C months earlier than was originally expected.
John Brown is a retired financial advisor specializing in M&A deals. If you would like to learn more about merger & acquisitions in specialized niches visit Valence Group.
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