Hepatitis C
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of acute hepatitis and chronic liver diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. Globally, an estimated 170 million individuals - three percent of the world's population - are chronically infected with HCV and three to four million people become infected each year.
Currently, there is no vaccine available to prevent HCV, nor an HCV-specific antiviral agent approved for treatment of chronic infection. The number of people facing death or serious liver disease from HCV is rising steadily because people often live for decades with the virus before symptoms emerge.
The current standard of care is a combination of pegylated interferon (IFN) with ribavirin. Inadequate response rates - particularly for patients infected with genotype 1 HCV - and significant side effects from approved therapies support the medical need for improved treatment options. It is estimated that less than five percent of people with chronic HCV infection living in the U.S. are currently undergoing treatment. The majority do not know they are infected and others have failed interferon-based therapy or avoid treatment altogether.
It is expected that the next generation of therapies for treatment of HCV will include small molecules, such as our product candidate ANA598, that directly act upon specific viral enzymes to inhibit viral replication. These new agents are expected to improve overall therapy by increasing cure rates and potentially improving tolerability and convenience of treatment if doses of currently used agents can be reduced or eliminated.
Last Updated 1/12/2009
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Hepatitis C