Hepatitis cure gets funding

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

More than 100 hepatitis C sufferers a year are expected to be cured of the virus by using a new drug the Government has agreed to buy.

Pharmac estimates that about 250 people each year will qualify for the drug, called Pegasys, at a cost of up to $5 million annually.

It has agreed to fund the injected drug in a combination with an anti-viral pill from next month.

But it will be restricted to the largest and hardest-to-treat group of patients - those with the so-called genotype 1 of the virus.

This type occurs in about half the 30,000 people estimated to be infected with hepatitis C.

The standard treatment is interferon plus the anti-viral pills. Pegasys, supplied by drug company Roche, is a new interferon that lasts longer in the body. When used with the anti-viral pills, it has been shown in trials to clear about 50 per cent of genotype 1 patients of the virus, compared with a 36 per cent success rate for the standard therapy.

Another benefit is that side-effects, including flu-like symptoms and depression, are less common among Pegasys users.

"It's a major advance in the management of hepatitis C," Associate Professor Ed Gane, an Auckland City Hospital liver specialist, said last night.

Curing patients of the virus once they had cirrhosis (liver damage) could prevent them from progressing to liver failure and needing a transplant, he said.

"What we cannot prevent completely is the risk of liver cancer."

Both liver failure and cancer could be reasons for a transplant.

Only a tenth of people with hepatitis C have been diagnosed, partly because it is symptomless in many people.

The virus is now mainly spread by sharing needles used to inject illegal drugs, but is also transmitted on body-piercing gear and, rarely, by having sex.

Around 15 per cent of people infected with the virus eliminate it by themselves. For the rest, it stays in their bodies long-term and in some it can lead to liver failure and cancer.

More than a third of the 30 to 40 liver transplants done in New Zealand annually at a cost of $140,000 each are because of hepatitis C.

Hepatitis Foundation chief executive John Hornell said Pharmac's decision was "tremendous - first class. We are back up there again as a world leader".