Valeant Pharmaceuticals International of Costa Mesa said Tuesday a drug to treat hepatitis B showed positive results in the second-phase trials.
The company’s pradefovir showed a significant decline in viral load, or the amount of the virus in a patient’s DNA, without evidence of kidney tissue damage, Valeant said.
The study involved 242 patients from the U.S. and three other countries, Valeant said, noting that around half the patients were previously treated ineffectively with other drugs.
“If the clinical results continue to be successful, pradefovir could provide physicians with a new treatment alternative that will significantly improve patient outcomes,” Chief Executive Timothy Tyson said.
If effective, Pradefovir could become a player in the worldwide hepatitis B market, which is estimated to reach $2.8 billion worldwide by 2012. Some 2 billion people have the potentially fatal liver disease. Of those, around 400 million are estimated to be chronically infected.
Pradefovir is one of Valeant’s late-stage drug candidates, which also include viramidine, a next-generation treatment for hepatitis C, and Zelapar, a drug for Parkinson’s disease, a nerve disorder.
