New Treatments for Chronic Hepatitis C Infection

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment will change dramatically with the FDA's recent approval of two new oral HCV protease inhibitors, boceprevir and telaprevir. When used in combination with current standard therapy (peginterferon and ribavirin [PR]), these new drugs substantially improve cure rates and often reduce the overall duration of therapy. Although data are still emerging, these new drugs are likely to benefit HIV-coinfected patients as well.

Boceprevir (Victrelis) was approved by the FDA on May 13, 2011, for the treatment of chronic HCV genotype 1 infection both in patients who are treatment-naive and in those with prior treatment failure.1 The approval was based on two large, manufacturer-sponsored, phase III, randomized, c…