Research abstracts for next month's hepatitis C meeting have been released online and what I've seen so far looks good for Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) and its experimental Hep C drug telaprevir.
Specifically, the efficacy of telaprevir in patients with treatment-resistant Hep C is fairly phenomenal, according to data from the so-called "PROVE 3" phase II study. Patients treated with telaprevir reported cure rates (SVR) of 51-52% overall compared to 14% cure rates for patients retreated with only standard of care.
In the subset of "non responder" patients (these are Hep C patients who didn't respond at all to standard treatment, so the most stubborn cases) telaprevir induced cure rates (SVR) of 38-39% compared to 9% for patients retreated with standard treatment.
Position: long VRTX in the Biotech Select model portfolio
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