A ten-fold increase in efficacy is impressive. I’ve been pondering what it might mean.
BIT225 doesn’t directly kill off HCV. Instead it stops it from replicating inside reservoir cells. That’s why it is used in combination. In the trial it was left to interferon and ribavirin to clear the virus from the bloodstream.
So the benefit of BIT225 would only become apparent over time. For the first week or so, the reduction in viral loads would likely be almost entirely due to interferon/ribavirin. Only as BIT225 prevented new viruses emerging would the decline in viral loads accelerate beyond the standard reduction.
In other words, the reduction of viral load may become exponentially greater if dosing continues beyond four weeks. Also, with the safety and tolerability of BIT225 now demonstrated, higher doses are also likely to be trialled. So the ten-fold reduction is only a starting point.
We now know that BIT225 works to some degree. But we don’t yet know precisely how effective it has been in preventing viral reproduction in reservoir cells – its designated target.
For example, it’s possible that BIT225 has been effective against ALL infected reservoir cells, and the virus remaining in the bloodstream is due entirely to the inability of interferon/ribavirin to clear it.
Alternatively, BIT222 may have only been partially effective in targeting reservoir cells.
I’m sure this is the sort of information that big pharma will want to have before committing.
One indication of BIT225’s effectiveness would be how the viral load reduces over time. If BIT225 is highly effective, then you would expect the greatest deviation between standard care and the combination treatment to be seen in the fourth week of the trial.
This is just me thinking out loud – anyone else have any thoughts?
BIT Price at posting:
12.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
