S-P's boceprevir boosts HCV clearance rates

US drug major Schering-Plough says that initial results from an ongoing Phase II study of boceprevir, its investigational oral hepatitis C protease inhibitor, in treatment-naive HCV patients showed that 800mg of the drug in combination with Pegintron (peginterferon alfa-2b) and Rebetol (ribavirin) achieved a high rate of early virologic response, with up to 79% of patients having undetectable HCV-RNA at week 12 of treatment compared to 34% on Pegintron and Rebetol alone.

"These initial results, while preliminary, are very encouraging, and showed that boceprevir is a potent antiviral agent for hepatitis C," said lead investigator Paul Kwo, adding: "in this study, boceprevir improved viral clearance rates at week 12 in genotype 1 hepatitis C infection compared to the control group. We look forward to further results from this ongoing study." A total of 595 patients have been treated in this trial, at sites across the USA, Canada and Europe.