Boston, MA 10\/28\/2013 (wallstreetpr) –\u00a0<\/b>A panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committee has recommended for approval of Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD)\u2019s hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir. FDA is not bound to follow the Advisory Committee\u2019s recommendation; however, it has typically done so in the past. This drug is considered more effective than any current treatments for hepatitis C and it also takes less time in treatment process.\u00a0 The recommendation of sofosbuvir was voted unanimously by the Advisory panel. The drug is intended for the patients with genotype 2 and genotype 3 variants of the liver-damaging hepatitis C disease. The drug can be used in combination of existing therapies like ribavirin.<\/p>\n
The approval of the drug helps in obviating side effects associated with injectable interferon since it\u2019s an all-oral therapy for genotypes 2 and 3. As such, the approval of the drug is viewed as historic and a game-changer in the healthcare field. The use of this drug will also extend to patients with genotypes 1 and 4 as well as those who have not been through any prior therapy. Genotype 1 is the most prevalent hepatitis C genotype, accounting for nearly 70% of the cases. Presently, treatment for genotype 1 hepatitis C variant include oral drugs called protease inhibitors which include titles such as Victrelis and Incivek.<\/p>\n
According to data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control, chronic hepatitis C affects roughly 3 million people in the U.S. With this number of sufferers, analysts project Gilead\u2019s new all-oral drug to generate sales of nearly $1.73 billion in the next financial year. Gilead obtained the rights to sofosbuvir following its 2012 purchase of Pharmasset Inc at a transaction value of $11 billion.<\/p>\n
The research-based biopharmaceutical company fell 0.21% in Friday\u2019s trading to complete the run at $69.68. It now has $106.65 billion in market cap. The company discovers, develops and markets medicines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boston, MA 10\/28\/2013 (wallstreetpr) –\u00a0A panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committee has recommended for approval of Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD)\u2019s hepatitis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":11521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_2902945987_2902945987":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[3839,1978,3626,1522],"stock_ticker":[],"class_list":["post-11520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-gild","tag-gilead-sciences-inc-nasdaqgild","tag-gilead-sciences-inc","tag-nasdaqgild","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n