Gilead Sciences updates on hepatitis C development programs

US biotech firm Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD) presented several updates regarding its late-stage pipeline candidates for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection at the 31st Annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference taking place in San Francisco, USA.

The company released new results from an arm of the ongoing Phase II ELECTRON study examining the nucleotide sofosbuvir and the NS5A inhibitor GS-5885, and provided a progress report on a range of Phase II and III clinical trials evaluating a once-daily fixed-dose combination tablet of these medicines.

"Since the acquisition of Pharmasset only a year ago, we have fully enrolled four Phase III studies of sofosbuvir and during the first quarter of this year we will have initiated two Phase III studies of the sofosbuvir and GS-5885 fixed-dose combination," said Norbert Bischofberger, executive vice president, R&D, and chief scientific officer, Gilead Sciences, adding: "We are on track to submit the initial regulatory filing for sofosbuvir by mid-2013 and to file for approval of the fixed-dose combination of sofosbuvir and GS-5885 in 2014."