Are any new drugs for treatment of hepatitis C being developed?
The currently available treatment is a combination of two drugs: pegylated interferon and ribavirin. It is anticipated that a new drug called telaprevir will receive FDA approval in 2011 and become available for use with these two drugs in a three-drug combination. Treatment success rates for patients with genotype 1 hepatitis C are much higher when all three drugs are used. (Telaprevir is currently available only in research trials.) Other drugs similar to telaprevir are likely to be approved in 2012 or later. The availability of new drugs will mean a higher likelihood of treatment success for genotype 1 patients. For patients who have been previously treated with pegylated interferon plus ribavirin and either relapsed or had no response, the new three-drug combination could provide an option of re-treatment. Unfortunately, since telaprevir and other potential new drugs must be used in combination with pegylated interferon and ribavirin, the difficulties and side effects of existing t
