The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7507 p753-754
21 June 2008

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Interferon: an important step forward in treating hepatitis C infection

Our series on landmark drugs continues with an article, by Jenny Bryan, looking at the application of interferon to the treatment of hepatitis

Landmark drugs series

SUMMARY

When American liver disease specialist Jay Hoofnagle reported giving alpha interferon to 10 patients with hepatitis C in 1986, the virus that causes the disease had not even been identified, and the disease was still called “non-A, non-B hepatitis”.

But there was no doubting the efficacy of the treatment. In eight of the 10 patients, liver enzyme levels fell rapidly and eventually reached normal or near normal levels. Stopping treatment after four months in two patients sent transaminase levels back up to pre-treatment levels, so the authors suggested that long-term, low-dose alpha interferon might be effective in controlling the infection.

Their conclusion was probably influenced by several years of experience using alpha interferon to treat chronic hepatitis B, for which long courses of treatment were needed with the aim of controlling rather than curing the infection.

“Hepatitis B is caused by a DNA virus, which integrates itself into the host DNA, so we can only expect to control the infection. In contrast, hepatitis C is an RNA virus, which does not integrate into the human genome and so it can be eradicated and the infection cured,” explains Geoff Dusheiko, professor of medicine and honorary consultant at the Royal Free Hospital, London, who was involved in the first studies of recombinant alpha interferon in hepatitis B infection in the early 1980s.

Alpha interferon extracted from human leucocytes had been used to treat hepatitis B in the 1970s, but it remained in short supply until one of the early biotechnology companies, Genentech, produced it through recombinant DNA technology in 1980.

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