Boceprevir: A new hope against hepatitis C virus

Abstract

According to the statistics available, hepatitis C seems to affect 170 million people worldwide with varying prevalence according to the geographical distribution.[1] Out of 80% of infected population develop chronic hepatitis, 20% develop cirrhosis.[2] Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the most important cause for liver transplant.[3] Tragically being a major illness, many drugs have not been approved for the treatment of hepatitis C. HCV infection has been a major obstacle for the treating physicians, even after approval of pegylated interferon and ribavirin.[4] Researchers have being in advent for a new drug molecule to treat this infection. After years, boceprevir was approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of hepatitis C infection. Boceprevir has shown hope for clinicians not only to patients with treatment on interferon and ribavirin, but also shown hope to a big challenge of non- responders. However, the limitation with present treatment of a combined regimen of pegylated interferon and ribavirin given for 48 weeks is that its being poorly tolerated by the patients due to increased side effects.[5] With limited research in the field of HCV infection, a new drug getting approved as an add-on to conventional therapy came as a silver lining in the dark cloud, especially when it comes to deal with non-responders.

Keywords: Molecules of the Millennium