A Promising First Step for Combination Oral Therapy Against HCV

Oral hepatitis C virus (HCV) protease inhibitors are expected to be approved in 2011. Adding these agents to standard HCV treatment (peginterferon plus ribavirin) improves the likelihood of sustained virologic response, but the interferon component must be given subcutaneously and has substantial side effects. In the industry-funded INFORM-1 study, researchers explored whether an interferon-free regimen containing two new oral anti-HCV agents — the protease inhibitor danoprevir, plus the nucleoside polymerase inhibitor RG7128 — could successfully suppress HCV replication.

Patients with chronic HCV genotype 1 infection but not cirrhosis or HIV infection were randomly assigned to receive placebo (n=14) or one of six different doses of danoprev…