Roche drug combo helps Pegintron-resistant patients

Swiss drug major Roche says that final results from the REPEAT study demonstrate that treatment with once-weekly Pegasys (peginterferon alfa-2a) and daily Copegus (ribavirin) can achieve viral clearance in a number of patients who did not respond to initial treatment with Pegintron, another commonly-used HCV drug.

This outcome gives hepatitis C patients the opportunity to tackle their disease a second time after initial treatment failure, Roche noted, adding that the results show a patient's response to treatment at 12 weeks is a powerful predictor of the eventual outcome: the majority of those with undetectable virus levels at that time went on to achieve a sustained virological response, indicating treatment success. Few patients with detectable virus at 12 weeks achieved SVR. These data were presented in an oral session at the 58th annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, in Boston.