Idenix CEO Sees Hep C Treatment Boom
NEW YORK (
) -- Once treatments for hepatitis C have fewer negative side effects and a better cure rate,
Idenix Pharmaceuticals
(IDIX)
CEO Ronald Renaud expects more people with the disease to be treated.
"What will happen is when we make the shift to more convenient, less toxic, easier-to-take regimens to cure the disease, there will be much more intense screening initiatives and the government and the industry will go out and find these patients and make sure they get treated," Renaud said in an interview Thursday. "Because the cost of treating the disease if it's not cured is much more dramatic as the disease progresses than it is if you can cure it upfront."
Renaud anticipates the next evolution of hepatitis C treatments, which will be an all-oral cocktail of drugs, will have "a much better side effect profile" as well as being "more convenient" and "offer much higher cure rates."
Biopharmaceutical rival
Gilead Sciences
(GILD) - Get Report
hit a stumbling block Friday in its path to develop an all-oral hepatitis C treatment. The company's
.
Idenix's lead product for treating hepatitis C, IDX184, is a pan-genotypic oral nucleotide polymerase inhibitor. The partial clinical hold that was placed on IDX184 was lifted by the Food & Drug Administration on Feb. 3. The hold was put in place in September 2010 because of
three cases of elevated liver function tests
. Now that the hold has been lifted, Idenix's 12-week phase IIb study looking at IDX184 with pegylated interferon and ribavirin is allowed to continue.
Renaud estimated that somewhere between 1% and 3% of the world's population has the hepatitis C virus and about three-quarters of them are unaware that they have it.
About 17,000 new hepatitis C virus infections in the U.S. are estimated to have occurred in 2007, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of reported cases is much lower than that though, the CDC added.
-- Written by Alexandra Zendrian
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