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Abstract Details
Second wave Anti-HCV Protease Inhibitors: Too little too late?
De Nicola S1, Aghemo A. Liver Int. 2014 Mar 20. doi: 10.1111/liv.12543. [Epub ahead of print]
Author information
1Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico di Milano, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
Abstract
Drug development for chronic hepatitis C is progressing at a furious rate; after more than 10 years spent at optimizing Pegylated Interferon and Ribavirin regimens, the ability to design drugs targeting key steps of the HCV life cycle has allowed the development of several directly acting antivirals (DAA). The NS3/4A Protease inhibitors Telaprevir and Boceprevir, have been a major breakthrough for patients and clinicians as they finally allowed patients with HCV genotype 1 to achieve high SVR rates, that top the 80% mark in some highly responsive subgroups (1-4). Unfortunately, both drugs did not solve all our problems due to a significant pill burden, clinically relevant drug-drug interactions and most importantly the fact that their efficacy is heavily relying on the activity of the PegIFN/Rbv backbone.