治疗diarrhea 腹泻药Alinia能治疗丙肝?

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November 2, 2007, 8:40 am
Diarrhea Drug Surprises in Hepatitis C
Posted by Jacob Goldstein

New treatments for hepatitis C have been getting a fair bit of attention lately (click on the image at left for the WSJ’s recent look). But until now nobody’s been paying attention to Alinia, a drug approved to treat diarrhea, that’s being tried for infections with hepatitis C virus.

Yet a mid-stage study being presented next week at a liver conference found that 79% of HCV patients who took the drug in combination with standard treatment had undetectable level of virus 12 weeks after treatment, compared with 43% of patients who had standard treatment and a placebo. Side effects were comparable in both groups of patients. The company’s announcement of the results is here.

The study was done in Egypt in 96 patients with a strain of the disease, known as genotype 4, that’s not common in this country. Romark Laboratories, the privately held company that sells Alinia, says it’s now testing the drug in this country on patients with genotype 1, a strain that’s more common here. Genotype 4 may be a bit easier to treat than genotype 1, the NYT suggests.

Alinia (generic name: nitazoxanide) is approved for treating diarrhea caused by a couple different bugs — Cryptosporidium and Giardia. While the drug was being developed to treat cryptosporidium, researchers “serendipitously” discovered that it might also be used to treat viruses such as hepatitis C, the company says.

Bonus Hep: Vertex Pharmaceuticals, whose data will also be presented at the conference, says its experimental drug telaprevir, in combination with existing treatments, reduced the virus to undetectable levels in more than 60% of patients. Available treatments work about 50% of the time. Anticipation is running high for telaprevir, with some estimates for annual sales exceeding $2 billion. While FDA approval is probably a couple years away, the company is on a hiring spree that has it bursting at the seams, the Boston Globe reports. Vertex workers toil in eight buildings across Cambridge, Mass., “including a former cow barn and another structure built on a site where Vertex employees once played roller hockey.” And the company is scouting for more space. Since 2005 Vertex has increased its Cambridge workforce by nearly two-thirds to about 850 employees, the Globe says.