HCV Coalition for the Cure launches White House petition to end hepatitis C
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19.02.2013
San Antonio, TX (February 19, 2013):
Urging pharmaceutical giants Gilead and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) to put patients' lives ahead of profits, the HCV Coalition for The Cure on February 19 will launch a White House petition drive seeking 100,000 signatures within a month to bring to President Obama's attention an exceptionally promising treatment for a deadly disease being held captive by corporate self-interest.A combination of Gilead's drug sofosbuvir and BMS's daclatasvir in 2012 was found in Phase II trials to achieve a 100 percent cure rate for three of the most common types of liver-destroying hepatitis C (HCV), the most widespread blood borne infection in the United States. The combination treatment cured HCV type 1 within 12 weeks, and also showed the same promising results with types 2 and 3 (without ribavirin or interferon).The all-oral combination would represent a great advance in HCV treatment, not only because of its remarkable results but because its side-effects--mild to moderate fatigue, headache and nausea--were well-tolerated. It would represent a vast improvement over the traditional chemo-style HCV treatment of interferon and ribavirin, both of which have severe and debilitating side-effects and achieve only about a 40 percent cure rate."We had never, ever imagined--even in our wildest dreams--we could treat hepatitis C so quickly, effectively and without serious side effects," said Paul Thuluvath, a physician at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., who had six patients on the new treatment. "I think the pharmaceutical companies have a moral responsibility to work together and bring it to market instead of [following] their own vested interests."Gilead withdrew from collaboration with its competitor, pulling its drug from the studies. Dr. Douglas J. Manion, a BMS senior Vice President, said his company is "keen" to work with Gilead, "but thus far, they have been unwilling to engage in that collaboration."Instead of collaborating to further research the proven cure, each company instead has tried unsuccessfully to replicate the other's drug.The HCV Coalition's White House petition follows an earlier petition at www.change.org that was signed by more than 11,000 people. The group also has joined its voice with other consumer advocate organizations, including the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which has long been critical of the pharmaceutical industry.
