New drugs currently in the works will offer new hope to people with the chronic liver disease hepatitis C, says the Toronto-based chairman of the Canadian Liver Foundation. Where current antiviral medications interferon and ribavirin offer a 50 per cent chance of overcoming the disease, new drugs will up the success rate to 75 to 80 per cent, said Dr. Morris Sherman. The first of the new drugs should be available in two to three years, he added.

Hepatitis C Innovations

“There are a whole host of new drugs coming,” Sherman said in a Nov. 3 interview. The first of those are boceprevir and telaprevir, which are soon to be submitted for licensing. Following those two drugs, 12 to 15 additional drugs are expected to be approved at some point in the future. “It’s a huge worldwide market,” Sherman said of the demand for hepatitis C cures, with the demand being five times that of the HIV treatment market.