The trial was to look at the efficacy of combining lamivudine and interferon. The combo is effective in increasing % patients with undetactable HBV DNA, but the seroconversion rate is not significantly different from interferon therapy alone because many patients relapse.
I am assuming that you are referring to the study published in NEJM?
If so I'd like to point out something pertinent to this thread: it is true that the combo had a higher percentage of patients with with very low(not sure it was detection limit) viral load (<400 copies/ml) at the end of treatment, but did NOT have a higher rate of viral response compared to ifn alone after 24 weeks of followup. (i.e. the extra benefit of combo with Lam was completely washed out by 24 weeks after last treatment)
PS I generally agree that Hep B seems to be further behind than Hep C and tougher to treat - so it is potentially a substantial market for a better ifn.
PPS I would really like to understand why HVB chose to go with seroconversion as their primary metric and HCV chose to go with viral load.
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