News Feature | April 15, 2014

AbbVie Presents Data From TURQUOISE-II Chronic Hepa C Study At ILC 2014

By Estel Grace Masangkay

AbbVie announced that new, late-breaking results from its hepatitis C drug development program were recently presented at the International Liver Congress (ILC) 2014. The global, randomized, multi-center, open-label TURQUOISE-II study assessed the efficacy and safety of 12 weeks or 24 weeks of treatment with ribavirin in adult patients with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection with compensated liver cirrhosis. Results showed that patients achieved sustained virologic response rates at 12 weeks post-treatment of 91.8 and 95.9 percent for the 12- and 24-week treatment arms respectively. Participants in the study were either treatment-naïve or had failed previous therapy with pegylated interferon and RBV.

"Results from the TURQUOISE-II study demonstrate that high SVR12 rates can be achieved in GT1 patients with compensated liver cirrhosis in both 12-week and 24-week treatment durations. These data are encouraging, as cirrhotic patients are often a difficult-to-treat population in the HCV community,” said Fred Poordad, TURQUOISE-II lead clinical investigator and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Scott Brun, VP of Pharmaceutical Development at AbbVie, said, “We designed our comprehensive HCV clinical trial program to generate important information about treating a range of GT1 patients. These data will help the medical community better understand the use of our regimen for specific patient types they encounter with GT1 infection in actual practice.”

The company also presented the following data at the ILC:

  • PEARL-III late-breaker poster: A phase III study examining the AbbVie regimen for 12 weeks with or without RBV in non-cirrhotic GT1b HCV-infected adult patients who were new to therapy
  • M12-999 oral presentation: Interim results of a phase II study examining the AbbVie regimen with RBV for 24 weeks in non-cirrhotic adult liver transplant recipients with recurrent GT1 HCV infection

Data from TURQUOISE-II study have also been published online in The New England Journal of Medicine.