Patients who fail current hepatitis C virus HCV treatments have few other options except trying the same drugs again, but an experimental antiviral drug is poised to change that.When the drug telaprevir was added to standard treatment with peginterferon alfa and ribavirin, which are also antivirals, about half of patients who had failed previous treatment with the two drugs cleared the virus.The patients showed no evidence of HCV infection six months after completing treatment, which is considered a cure.Telaprevir is one of two highly anticipated drugs in the class known as protease inhibitors being studied in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection, a condition that affects about 3 million Americans and is the leading cause of liver transplants in the U.S.

via New Drug Cures Hard-to-Treat Hepatitis C.