Making the Most of Incremental Advantages in the Hepatitis C Market

Schering-Plough Corp. 's best-selling drug—a combination of peginterferon alfa-2b (PEG-Intron) and ribavirin (Rebetol) for hepatitis C (HCV)—has enjoyed a growing market to itself, with more than $1 billion in sales. Now, though, Roche is about to challenge Schering-Plough's hegemony by launching its own combination of alfa-interferon plus ribavirin. In December, Roche received FDA approval for combination treatment Pegasys/Copegus, and earlier this month, it settled a patent dispute with ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. , the first commercializer of ribavirin, putting in place the final piece of the puzzle. (Pegasys was approved as a monotherapy two months earlier, but the standard of care is to use alfa interferon and ribavirin together; neither drug on its own is highly effective.) Now the two players are preparing for battle in a market in which the stakes are high, and competitive alternatives are still several years away from market.

Most people find out that they have HCV in the course of getting blood tests for other purposes; in the US, an estimated 4 million people are infected