Strong Ph I data for Roche's novel HCV drug

Swiss drug major Roche says that R1626, its candidate oral polymerase inhibitor for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C, achieved significant reductions of viral load in patients with difficult-to-treat genotype-1 HCV.

Data from the ongoing Phase I trial were presented at the 41st annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Liver Disease, held in Vienna, Austria, and Roche says that R1626 will be further studied as a combination with its approved HCV drugs Pegasys (peginterferon alfa-2a) and Copegus (ribavirin).