Boston, MA 01/23/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) announced on Jan 17 that its new drug to treat Hepatitis C was approved and will be soon launched across the European Union. The drug Sovaldi had in November earlier received a favorable recommendation from the European Medicines Agency, after which the European Commission has now decide to go ahead with making it available in the market.
First oral treatment
The drug is a relief for liver patients who have had no oral treatment option until now. This drug however offers to treat the disease by taking the pill, also called sofosbuvir, orally once per day. Sovaldi is a type of nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor, also called nukes. It is a class of drug which works by blocking one of the key enzymes the Hepatitis C virus needs to replicate itself. The drug is expected to cost around $84,000 for one complete treatment course.
Ribavirin’s side effects
Earlier, the only means that the patients could sought, required injecting the drug, interferon, within the body. This drug had been known to cause several side effects, some flu-like symptoms. Another drug which was available was ribavirin, which again had miserable ill effects of its own. This had led several unwilling patients to delay the treatment of the deadly disease in the anticipation of a more friendly treatment option. Both these drugs required a 24 to 48 weeks treatment period and have reportedly known to cure about 75% of the patients.
Sovaldi to wipe out Ribavirin
Earlier, on December 18, Gilead had released effective last stage data for this once daily combination pill which demonstrated cure rates of more than 90% in three Phase III studies. at the time, they had experimented on some patients for only a period of about 8 weeks.
According to Geoffrey Porges, a Stanford Bernstein analyst, Gilead’s new finding could mark the complete eradication of drugs like ribavirin while raising the strength of patients seeking treatment.
