Hepatitis C: New hope for patients

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A non-profit organisation is making headway in its initiative to develop drugs for neglected diseases to benefit those who can’t afford them. New Sunday Times speaks to two medical practitioners who are working towards making affordable Hepatitis C treatment available to local hospitals.

OF the estimated 150 million people infected with chronic Hepatitis C around the world, approximately 75 per cent live in low- to middle-income countries.

However, some countries, including Malaysia, are excluded from the voluntary licensing agreements that the intellectual property holders of the Hepatitis C drugs have concluded with generic pharmaceutical companies.

As a result, new Hepatitis C medicines are very expensive.

“Treatment for Hepatitis C can be as much as US$30,000 (RM128,000) for each therapy.

“Our aim is to develop a treatment that is as good for a fraction of that, possibly under US$300 (RM1,280),” said Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) executive director Dr Bernard Pecoul in an interview with the New Sunday Times recently.

DNDi is a collaborative, patients’ needs-driven, non-profit drug research and development organisation that is developing new treat- ments for neglected diseases.

Based in Geneva, Switzerland, it is aimed at improving the quality of life and the health of people suffering from such diseases by using an alternative model to develop drugs for them while ensuring equitable access to new and field-relevant health tools.

Dr Pecoul said DNDi had signed an agreement with the Health Ministry last year to facilitate access to Hepatitis C treatment for Malaysians.

“We plan to conduct clinical trials to test a combination treatment of the drug in pan-genotypic patient populations in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand soon.

“At the moment, we are in the phase of implementing the study involving 220 patients to prove the efficacy of this combination treatment.”