Health & Fitness | March 11, 2003, Tuesday
H.I.V. Lessons Used in Hepatitis C Treatment

By ANDREW POLLACK (NYT) 1380 words
Late Edition - Final , Section F , Page 6 , Column 3

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50A17FE3C5A0C728DDDAA0894DB404482

ABSTRACT - Drug companies are beginning to test drugs that interfere with enzymes that hepatitis C virus needs to replicate, like protease and polymerase; are encouraged by report from Boehringer Ingelheim, German drug company, that its experimental protease inhibitor reduced viral levels by range of hundredfold to more than a thousandsfold in small number of patients who took drug for only two days; photo (M) Drugs that interfere with H.I.V. have had a major effect in reducing death and disability from AIDS. Now drug companies are beginning to test the first similar drugs for the hepatitis C virus, which can cause fatal liver disease and has infected far more people than H.I.V.

''If they work, they could have the same impact on H.C.V. that the H.I.V. drugs do,'' said Dr. Frank Chisari, a professor of virology at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.