'Sponge' Drug Shows Promise For Treating Hepatitis C

Particles of the hepatitis C virus are imaged with an electron microscope.

Particles of the hepatitis C virus are imaged with an electron microscope.

With an estimated 2 million baby boomers infected with hepatitis C, the disease has reached epidemic levels among Americans age 48 to 68.

Doctors can now cure about 70 percent of hepatitis C cases, but the drugs' side effects can be severe. And many Americans are still left with a disease that can cause liver failure and cancer.

So doctors have been desperate for better treatment options.

One of the drugs in the pipeline, called miravirsen, may be able to stop the virus with little side effects, doctors from University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, reported Wednesday.

Their findings, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, are preliminary the doctors gave the drug to just 27 patients for about a month. (Another 9 patients in the study were given a placebo.) But the study is still drawing attention because it offers proof-of-concept for a whole new class of drugs, called RNA interference drugs.

RNAi drugs work differently than traditional antivirals and antibiotics. And some scientists think they may have the potential to treat many illnesses, including the big killers, cancer and heart disease.

Traditional drugs are small chemicals that bind directly to the pathogen's machinery. In contrast, RNAi drugs are little fragments of RNA (or DNA) that act like "sponges" inside the cell. They mop up other RNA molecules that a virus or cancer cell needs to survive.

The pharmaceutical industry has been working for decades to get RNAi drugs to work, says Dr. Judy Lieberman of Harvard Medical School, who wasn't involved in the current study.

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'Sponge' Drug Shows Promise For Treating Hepatitis C