Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

NVS’ Lescol Improved SVR Rate When Added to SoC

[This result is more of a curiosity than a serious solution to treating HCV, IMHO. Lescol (fluvastatin) is an also-ran statin from NVS that was approved in the mid 1990s.]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-31/cholesterol-drug-improved-hepatitis-c-patient-response-in-study.html

›By Naomi Kresge - Mar 31, 2011

Adding a cheap cholesterol drug to the standard therapy for hepatitis C helped more patients clear the virus from their bodies in a study.

About 63 percent of those who took the generic medicine fluvastatin with the standard treatment were virus-free, compared with about half of patients who took the standard therapy of interferon paired with ribavirin alone, investigators said today at the European Association for the Study of the Liver conference in Berlin. The study followed 209 patients for 72 weeks of treatment [i.e. 48 weeks of treatment and 24 weeks of post-treatment observation].

Fluvastatin is part of a class of drugs known as statins, which doctors prescribe to patients who are at risk of developing heart disease. Statins reduce the liver’s ability to make cholesterol, which can build up in blood vessels and lead to heart attacks. The same signs that lead doctors to prescribe statins, such as excess weight, also leave hepatitis C patients at higher risk of complications, said Heiner Wedemeyer, the secretary-general of EASL, in a statement.

“It’s quite nice to see a study that doesn’t use something outrageously expensive,” Mark Thursz, a professor of hepatology at Imperial College London, said in a press conference today.

Two new hepatitis C drugs that may be introduced this year were more effective than the fluvastatin combination in studies. They are telaprevir, from Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (VRTX) and New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and boceprevir, from Whitehouse Station, New Jersey- based Merck & Co. Both are used with older medicines interferon and ribavirin.

Earlier Study

Fluvastatin is sold under the brand name Lescol by Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis AG. Lescol had sales of $436 million last year. A 31-patient study in 2008 found that fluvastatin had a modest and short-lived effect against hepatitis C, the researchers said.

The results of today’s study are “very exciting for clinicians,” Wedemeyer said.‹