Experts Issue Early Guide for Hep C Protease Inhibitor Therapy in People Living with HIV

Provided by Hep Magazine

January 3, 2012

A small but influential group of hepatitis C virus (HCV) experts has published provisional guidelines on the use of HCV protease inhibitors (PIs) in people living with HIV. The guidelines, published ahead of print by Clinical Infectious Diseases, are based in part on recommendations made to the Maryland AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) to help guide the use of these drugs in people coinfected with both viruses in the absence of official approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and complete clinical trial results.

“Until additional data or alternative treatments are available,” David Thomas, MD, of the Johns Hopkins Schoolf Medicine and his colleagues write, “some experts believe that HCV PIs should be used in combination with peginterferon and ribavirin in certain HIV/HCV-coinfected persons.”

Merck’s Victrelis (boceprevir) and Vertex’s Incivek (telaprevir) were approved by the FDA in May 2011 for use in combination with pegylated interferon and ribavirin in people with genotype 1 HCV infection. These approvals were based on clinical trial data indicating improved sustained virologic response (SVR) responses—viral cures—by 25 to 31 percent, over pegylated interferon and ribavirin alone, in HIV-negative people living with chronic HCV infection.

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