A Significant Share of Surveyed Treatment-Naive and Prior Failure HCV Patients Plan to Initiate an HCV Treatment Regimen in the Next Year

EXTON, Pa., Sept. 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- BioTrends Research Group, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for specialized biopharmaceutical issues, finds in their PatientTrends^®: Hepatitis C Virus (US) 2013 report that approximately 40 percent of surveyed treatment-naive hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients and half of the prior treatment failure patients plan to receive an HCV antiviral regimen within the next year. However, the majority of these respondents did not know which regimen they will be initiating and only 9 and 14 percent, respectively, indicated they are planning to receive a treatment other than a currently-available regimen. Further, almost 40 percent of surveyed HCV patients also reported that their physician has previously recommended delaying treatment until new regimens become available and findings suggest that many patients are willing wait for safer and more effective regimens, especially if their liver disease is not advanced. The study also finds that awareness of therapies in development among HCV patients is low. Despite over two-thirds of the respondents indicating discussing products in development with their physician, more than three-quarters of the patients lacked unaided awareness of any emerging HCV products.

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"While most treatment-naive and prior treatment failure HCV patients who do not plan to be treated in the next year cite the future availability of better therapies as a reason, many of these patients specifically indicated waiting for interferon-free regimens to become available," said Infectious Diseases Therapy Leader Mladen Tomich, Ph.D. "However, patients overall prioritized effects on liver damage progression and reversal, and achieving sustained virologic response as the most important attributes in an HCV regimen, while exclusion of interferon or ribavirin was perceived as least important. Our research reveals that most HCV patients are prepared to endure a certain level of temporary disability as long as the treatment is efficacious."

Of note, surveyed treatment-naive HCV patients overall believe they have more influence on the management and treatment of their infection than their treating physicians. Also, the level of perceived personal influence over treatment decisions is significantly higher among surveyed treatment-naive patients than among treatment-experienced patients.

PatientTrends^®: Hepatitis C Virus (US) 2013 is an annual report that includes data from 245 chronically-infected HCV patients and provides insight into patient demographics, patient-physician relationship, treatment history and plans to initiate treatment. The report also investigates the importance of drug attributes to patients, satisfaction with currently-available HCV therapies and awareness of emerging therapies, including AbbVie's ABT-267, ABT-333 and ABT-450, Boehringer Ingelheim's deleobuvir and faldaprevir, Bristol-Myers Squibb's asunaprevir and daclatasvir, Janssen/Medivir's simeprevir and Gilead's sofosbuvir and ledipasvir.

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SOURCE BioTrends Research Group