Valeant Pharmaceuticals International said Tuesday that it started a fourth-phase clinical trial of hepatitis C drug Infergen in combination with ribavirin for treating patients who didn’t respond to previous treatments.
Costa Mesa-based Valeant acquired Infergen in January from InterMune Inc. for $113.5 million.
Valeant said the trial will look at how Infergen, which originally was developed by Amgen Inc., works in patients who didn’t respond to the traditional hepatitis C routine of ribavirin combined with pegylated interferon, or Peg-Intron.
Meanwhile, Valeant hasn’t yet announced when it’s going to launch a final trial of Viramidine, another liver drug hopeful that could be a potential successor to ribavirin.
