Promising results for Merck & Co’s hepatitis C drug combo

US pharma giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK) has announced additional data from the ongoing C-WORTHy study, a multi-arm Phase II clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of a once-daily, all-oral regimen combining MK-5172, an investigational hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3/4A protease inhibitor, and MK-8742, an investigational HCV NS5A replication complex inhibitor, among patients with chronic HCV Genotype 1 infection (GT1).

In an interim analysis of treatment-naive, non-cirrhotic patients administered a 12-week regimen of MK-5172/MK-8742, with and without ribavirin (RBV), a sustained viral response (SVR) was observed in 98% (42/43) of patients administered MK-5172/MK-8742 alone and 94% (75/80) in those administered MK-5172/MK-8742 plus RBV. The drug combination has been granted “Breakthrough Therapy” designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (The Pharma Letter October 23, 2013).

These data were presented, along with data on an eight-week regimen, at the 49th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), taking place in London, UK.