New innovations in the treatment of hepatitis C

Treatment and prevention of hepatitis C are constantly being evaluated and researched for improvement potential. Christopher O'Brien, MD talks in this video about the future of the disease and how it will be handled.

Transcript

00:00

CHRISTOPHER O'BRIEN: In the past, I think there was a perception that there might have been a stigma around hepatitis C. But at the present point in time,

00:08

the recognition is a large number of people actually have hepatitis C. They've not come forward

00:15

for one reason or another, probably a lot of having to do with the type of treatment that was available,

00:22

and also its unfortunate low rate of efficacy until recently. [ENERGETIC MUSIC]

00:32

Treatment is dramatically improved-- first, in the rate of success from 10% to 25%,

00:41

45%, around 75% most recently, and soon to be anywhere from 95% up to 100%.

00:49

So that's one advantage. The second is tolerability. The previous treatments somewhat lacked in tolerability

00:57

because they were injectables. But at this point in time, we're very excited that we will probably have oral therapy only

01:05

for hepatitis C pills. With the new treatments coming up, they should be simple enough that any internal medicine

01:13

physician should be able to administer them. That will be just a pill or two once

01:20

a day for three months with virtually no side effects; with a lot of the newer agents, no drug interactions.

01:27

It'll be like treating high blood pressure or high cholesterol. It will not be difficult.

01:33

The major issue, of course, will be the costs of the new therapies and how the third party payers

01:40

will look at this period. But I think with the competition coming up between the pharmaceutical companies, adjustment

01:47

and the cost will be made such that we'll be able to make this available to everybody who needs the treatment.

01:53

I'm very much an optimist. I'm not so sure I'm an optimist on the vaccine quite yet. The virus is very good at mutating its surface

02:03

and developing resistance to everything that we've tried so far. I may be wrong, but that's going to be a little bit more

02:11

of a difficult issue than the actual treatment of the disease. And unfortunately, once you get hepatitis C once,

02:20

it doesn't protect you against getting it again. You can get it again a week later. Get treated again yet a third time.

02:27

But there is still an unmet need for a vaccine. [AUDIO LOGO]