AbbVie presents positive Phase III results in patients with chronic hepatitis C

The first detailed results from US drugmaker AbbVie’s (NYSE: ABBV) pivotal Phase III study, PEARL-III, have been presented at the 21st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI).

PEARL-III evaluated the efficacy and safety of 12 weeks of treatment with AbbVie’s investigational therapy with or without ribavirin (RBV) in non-cirrhotic, adult patients with chronic genotype 1b (GT1b) hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection who were new to treatment. The 419-patient study met its primary and secondary endpoints with sustained virologic response rates 12 weeks post-treatment (SVR12) of 99.5 and 99.0% achieved with the AbbVie regimen with and without RBV, respectively. There were no study drug discontinuations due to adverse events.