Eight weeks of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s daclatasvir and Gilead Sciences’ Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) cured hepatitis C virus (HCV) in 76 percent of people coinfected with HIV in a recent trial, including all of those with low hep C viral loads at the outset, MedPage Today reports. Researchers treated 50 participants with eight weeks and 153 with 12 weeks of the regimen, reporting their findings at the Digestive Disease Week conference in Washington, DC.

All the participants who took eight weeks of daclatasvir and Sovaldi were treatment naive.. Of those treated for 12 weeks, 101 were treatment naive and 52 were treatment experienced. Out of all the participants, 83 percent had genotype 1 of hep C, 9 percent had genotype 2, 6 percent had genotype 3, and 2 percent had genotype 4.

Seventy-six percent (38 of 50) of those taking the eight-week course of treatment achieved a sustained virologic response 12 weeks after completing therapy (SVR12, considered a cure). All the members of this group who began the study with low serum levels of hep C were cured.

The 12-week regimen cured 97 percent (98 of 101) of the treatment-naive participants and 98 percent (51 of 52) of the treatment-experienced participants.

The regimen was safe and well-tolerated. There were no treatment-related serious adverse side effects, nor did anyone stop treatment because of side effects. One 52-year-old man died of a heart attack four weeks after completing treatment, but this was not believed to be related to the treatment.

To read the MedPage Today article, click here.