Glecaprevir-Pibrentasvir for Hepatitis C Infections

Posted on by

Before discussing one of the newest therapies for Hepatitis C, I wanted to give a shout out to Barbara McElhanon who along with Joanna Lomas-Mevers provided a quick update to our group on their important research to improve the management of encopresis in children with autism spectrum disorders.

Last August, the FDA announced approval of glecaprevir-pibrentasvir as a pangenomic treatment for Hepatitis C (From blog: Eight Week Pangenomic HCV Treatment Approved).

However, it is only in this past two weeks that some of the data from two large randomized, open-label, multicenter trials have been published: Z Zeuzem et al. NEJM 2018; 378: 354-69.  In total, 1208 patients were treated in the “ENDURANCE-1” and “ENDRUANCE-3” trials.

Key findings:

  • For genotype 1-infected patients, glecaprevir-pibrentasvir resulted in a sustained virologic response rate (at week 12) of 99.1% in the 8-week group and 99.7% in the 12-week group.
  • For genotype 3, glecaprevir-pibrentasvir resulted in a sustained virologic response rate (at week 12) of 95% with both 8-week and 12-week treatment.  A comparison group of sofosbuvir-daclatasvir (12 week treatment) resulted in a sustained virologic response rate (at week 12) of 97%.
  • Serious adverse events were rare.  There were three patients who died during the post-treatment period: two from heroin overdoses and one from ethanol intoxication/methadone toxicity.  Headache and fatigue were the most common reported adverse events.
  • There were no relapses among HCV-1-infected patients who were treated for 8 weeks

In addition to these studies, “recent phase 3 trials have shown that an 8-week regimen of glecaprevir-pibrentasvir in patients without cirrhosis” yielded response of 98% for genotype 2 and 93% for genotypes 4, 5, and 6.

My take: These studies indicate that glecaprevir-pibrentasvir is an effective 8-week therapy for patients with HCV infection.  Despite this terrific advance, unless we find a way to address the opioid crisis which is triggering an HCV epidemic, I am not optimistic that there will be an improvement in the number of individuals with HCV infection.

Related blog posts: