Hep C treatments make regular news—they come and they go. A promising trial, a novel method of treatment: one day a Hep C treatment will make headlines as the Next Big Thing, but a week or a month or more will reveal side-effects or other problem that makes it an impracticality (and for side-effects to rule out a potential Hep C treatment, especially those hailed as cures… they must be awful, because current Hep C treatment has intensely nasty side-effects.
So why the big fuss? Because there’s a lot of money in Hep C treatment. Especially with baby boomers hitting an age where silent Hep C symptoms can become quite loud (it’s estimated that a large percentage of baby boomers have Hep C and don’t know it. If you were born between 1945-1961, it’s recommended you get tested). With all that money up for grabs, Hep C products can really swing the manufacturing company in the stock market.
Hep C, officially, has no cure. And the current treatments don’t work for many Hep C patients. So with the large baby boomer market coming and room for more treatments in current protocol, most drug companies are working to get a share of the market.
So what’s the latest Hep C treatment making news? A weekly shot that competes with Hep C for the sites it attaches to in the liver. By not giving the virus a place to take hold, it might be able to rid it from the body. But the downside is that by attaching to the same place as Hep C it causes similar problems, damaging the live in the same way. Of course, the treatment doesn’t replicate like Hep C, so possibly, it might be a viable alternative treatment if it works fast enough.
Another round of trials is needed to know whether it will be just another headline failure.
Do you follow the ups and downs of Hep C research?
