Telaprevir April 28th View The Live Webcast From The FDA Advisory Panel

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Telaprevir April 28th View The "Live Webcast" From The FDA Advisory Panel

As we all know Today the FDA advisory panel recommended the approval of boceprevir Telaprevir is up for review tomorrow/April 28th by the FDA advisory panel, you can view the live webcast here from the FDA’s website. View the draft questions to the advisory community. Click here for more information on the webcast From Reuters 4-26Excerpt;Vertex's telaprevir eliminated the hepatitis C virus in 79 percent of newly treated patients, FDA reviewers said. That was higher than the 75 percent Vertex reported earlier because the FDA used a different cure rate calculation.Analysts said the higher effectiveness, plus few FDA safety concerns, meant an advisory panel would likely recommend approval of the drug on Thursday."We now expect telaprevir to get a relatively clean recommendation (and hence approval) with no significant exclusions, restrictions, warnings or caveats," Sanford Bernstein analyst Geoffrey Porges said in a research note.Current therapies require almost a year of treatment and often cause flu-like symptoms that are tough to

tolerate, with only about a 40 percent success rate. Both of the new medicines work by blocking a protein called protease that the virus needs to replicate.WAITING FOR TREATMENTDoctors say tens of thousands of patients have been delaying treatment in anticipation of the new anti-virals, which still must be taken in combination with the older drugs ribavirin and interferon.Hepatitis C is a bloodborne liver disease that can lead to chronic liver problems, liver cancer, cirrhosis and death. It is spread mainly through reuse of needles such as those used for illegal drugs and tattoos, or through blood transfusions before 1992 when screening began. About 3.2 million Americans and 170 million people worldwide have the disease.Analysts widely expect the Vertex pill to dominate the market with its greater

effectiveness. Telaprevir's 79 percent success rate compares with up to 66 percent for Merck's drug, boceprevir, in previously untreated patients. It also had a higher cure rate than the Merck drug in patients who had failed to be helped by prior therapy."Overall, the FDA review team's independent analyses confirmed the applicant's primary efficacy findings," FDA staff said in a summary prepared for the advisory panel of outside experts.The FDA reviewers said they would ask the panel to discuss rashes and anemia seen in clinical trials of telaprevir. Those issues were known and analysts do not expect them to derail the drug's approval.

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