Roche's Pegasys fares well vs peg-IFN alfa-2b

Swiss drug major Roche says that new data from three studies indicate that chronic hepatitis C patients who received Pegasys (peginterferon alfa-2a) plus ribavirin had a greater chance of achieving a sustained virological response than patients on peginterferon alfa-2b, the active ingredient of Pegintron, the main rival product from the USA's Schering-Plough, according to data presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, held in Milan, Italy

In an oral late-breaker session at the conference, data from a prospective, randomized, investigator-initiated head-to-head trial designed to directly compare Pegasys with peginterferon alfa-2b, each in combination with ribavirin, showed that 68.7% of hepatitis C patients who were treated with Pegasys achieved sustained virologic response, defined by undetectable hepatitis C virus RNA in the blood 24 weeks after the end of treatment, compared to 54.4% of those who received peginterferon alfa-2b (p=0.008). Furthermore, in genotypes 1 and 4 - the most difficult-to-treat patient group - 54.8% taking Pegasys achieved SVR, compared to 39.8% in the peginterferon alfa-2b group (p=0.04). Side effects were similar, although there were more withdrawals for adverse events in the peginterferon alfa-2b group, the firm noted.

Another study presented at the EASL, a retrospective analysis called The PRACTICE Study, analyzed the response of 3,470 patients of all genotypes, to hepatitis C treatment between 2000 and 2007 in 23 German treatment centers with a high volume of patients. Among matched pairs of patients, significantly more of those on Pegasys plus ribavirin achieved SVR compared to those treated with peginterferon alfa-2b and ribavirin (p = 0.008).