A couple of good links regarding Telaprevir and Boceprevir

[Trinity4]

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101030005011/en/Data-Phase-3-Studies-Showed-Superior-SVR

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101030005026/en/Mercks-Investigational-Medicine-Boceprevir-Achieved-Significantly-Higher

[willing]

thanks for posting! The AASLD embargo is lifting (boce presentation schedule for tomorrow) so there will probably be a flood of re-analyses of the data presented.

The full text of the boce prior-failures abstract is available from the aasld site as abstract 216. Comparing the data there with the Merck press-release points out a couple of details left out from the glossy, good news, press release. I usually pick on Vertex for this sort of selective data fishing but it looks like Merck is just as suspect. On the other hand, the rbv is definitely messing with my head,  so please check the math (gotta smile at  that bold-face "ribavirin is genotoxic and mutagenic and should be considered a potential carcinogen" warning as I'm gobbling the stuff)

From the abstract the definition of  'response-guided  tx' (RGT) was w8-UND. In the RGT arm, 74 of 162 were und at w8 and of those 64 went on to SVR (86%). Great stuff. Not shown is SVR among the (162-74=88)  who still had VL at w8. Line 3 of the table at the bottom of abstract 216   shows a total SVR count of 95 among the 162 in the RGT arm. So of those 88 only 95-64=31 got to SVR.  The not quite so good news sems to be that if the 4w lead in and 8w of soc+boce didn't get you to und your SVR odds drop to 31/88=35%.

Similarly in the flat 48w arm, the RGT cutoff had no effect, but the Merck press release says 84 of 161 were w8 UND and 74 of those got to SVR (88%). Again that's great. But for the 161-84=77 who were not w8-UND only 107-74=33 got SVR (42%).

So it looks like if the lead-in+PI doesn't get you to w8-UND you're not looking at a better outcome than SOC.

[smaug48]

Thanks for posting, Trin.

I'm a little surprised and disappointed that the SVR rate for people with bridging fibrosis/cirrhosis with tele is 63%.  I was hoping for a higher rate

[nazzareno]

great articles, thanks!

[working dog]

thanks a lot....makes me feel better about hanging in there .. ...billy

[virgocharm]

trinity4 i found info about boc meeting over at janis and friends.a very good outcome for which i was proud to be part of. did nt know how to bring info here.  i see it hitting the market sooner than we think.