Study Finds Better Drug Partner for ICN’s Hepatitis C Treatment

ICN Pharmaceutical Inc.’s prize drug ribavirin works better with a new Roche Holding product in treating hepatitis C than it does with its current drug combination to treat the liver disease, according to a university research report released Tuesday.

Patients responded to the once-a-week combination of Roche’s Pegasys and ribavirin 56% of the time, compared with a response rate of 45% for Rebetron, a Schering-Plough Inc. combination that must be taken three times a week, according to the University of North Carolina study.

Rebetron is a combination of Schering-Plough’s Intron A and ribavirin and is the standard treatment for the liver disease. Roche and Schering-Plough have developed improved versions of drugs called interferons; Schering-Plough won the approval of U.S. regulators to sell its drug, Peg-Intron, this year.

Costa Mesa-based ICN, meanwhile, is in the early clinical trial stage with levovirin, a new version of ribavirin that has fewer side effects. It said early this month that it is considering licensing the compound to a major pharmaceutical company that has worldwide distribution and marketing capabilities. Schering-Plough has first and last rights of refusal to license the product.

In the latest study, Roche’s Pegasys drug “showed an advantage over the older interferon,” UNC researcher Michael Fried said. “It’s clear that we’re not going to be using the three-times-a-week interferons anymore.”

Pegasys alone worked in about 30% of patients, the study found. Fried presented the data at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Atlanta.

Though the results of the study were positive, Roche is still behind Schering-Plough in the race to introduce doctors to its new hepatitis drug. Schering-Plough presented similar data in October and already markets Peg-Intron while Roche is awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval.

Both new drugs work better when combined with ribavirin, though neither has received FDA approval for use with the ICN drug.

Schering-Plough also released data at the meeting, presenting a study showing that 35% of patients for whom Rebetron didn’t work responded to the Peg-Intron-ribavirin combination. That could help Schering-Plough target the large group of patients that don’t receive any benefit from Rebetron.

Though Peg-Intron and Pegasys show a clear improvement over Rebetron, no studies have compared the two new drugs, making it difficult to determine if one is better than the other, Fried said.

Pegasys’ success in the market for hepatitis treatments, which analysts say could reach $3 billion in the next few years, is important for the Swiss drug maker because Roche has few products in late-stage development.

Hepatitis C, a virus that can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer, affects about 4 million people in the U.S. The virus is contracted mainly through infected blood and contaminated needles and is the leading cause of liver transplants in the U.S.

Many people don’t know for years that they’re infected because decades can pass before the appearance of symptoms, which include fatigue and flu-like ailments.

Shares of ICN rose 50 cents to close at $30.25 on the New York Stock Exchange.