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Wednesday, January 03, 2007The most effective drug treatment for the Hepatitis C virus is a version of a naturally-occurring molecule called interferon, which has been modified by coating it with sugar to allow it to remain in the body for longer. The patent for the resulting drug - pegylated interferon - ruled out any other pharmaceutical which involved interferon coated with sugar. However, the Imperial team found a way to place the necessary sugar elsewhere on the interferon molecule instead, effectively creating a new medicine not covered by the patent They plan to find a way to develop and market this alternative without involving pharmaceutical firms, at a fraction of the cost of the original medicine. Professor Shaunak said: "As far as we're concerned, the end-game is the cure - you can get to the end-game in several different ways, and we have found a different way of doing it." "What we have to recognise is that we have a real opportunity to cure infectious diseases in the developing world. "At the current price, only a fraction of the number of people who could benefit from the drug will actually receive it." The question is, will it pass the regulatory process, and how much will it cost them to do all the efficacy and safety testing? posted by Sydney on 1/03/2007 08:24:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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