BOSTON – Change was in the air at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases meeting here Nov. 11-15 and not just because of the recent US election results. The shifting drug development focus in liver diseases from the hepatitis C virus (HCV) to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is palpable, with market-leader Gilead Sciences Inc. recently stating that its latest Phase III, three-drug combination regimen probably signals the end of its R&D work in HCV.
Still, Gilead and its two closest pursuers in HCV – Merck & Co. Inc. and AbbVie Inc. – unveiled data for their next-generation direct-acting antiviral (DAA) combination regimens in Boston, and each company is working to produce eye-opening data in one of the few remaining challenges in the space – salvage therapy, that is curing HCV-infected patients who’ve failed a previous round of therapy with a DAA regimen
Elsewhere, Merck is trying to build a case for treating injectable drug users who have HCV as a means to address the greatest risk for new infections and as a possible pathway to eradicating the virus
