I am excited about HCV protease inhibitors which are orally active drugs with great strength.  Telaprevir

from Vertex Pharmaceuticals  has been named Incivek, and it drops the viral level by about

99.9% in less than a week. Press releases have details concerning the studies and can be read at .

The summary information was released by Vertex on 10-30-10. Read it . The  FDA has approved

telaprevir for every 8 hour dosing. A showed that it is effective with every 12 hour dosing.

The FDA  approved telaprevir, pegylated  interferon and ribavirin in combination for HCV.

For FDA briefing documents, click Other articles are available  at the national library

 of medicine,. Some are below; click the links to read. For the latest abstracts go

For the full FDA approved package insert click

The majority of patients will choose to be treated with triple therapy using telaprevir, Pegasys and

ribavirin. If they fail this, they might be able to enroll in a clinical trial with a new agent.

of protease inhibitor, polymerase inhibitor, Pegasys and ribavirin will push the success rate higher.

If you are interested in participating in a clinical trial to test new drugs go to and

.   Put "HCV" in the search field. It will tell you what clinical trials are available in the US.