Vertex Pharmaceuticals, the developer of telaprevir for hepatitis C, said today it has reached agreement with U.S. and European regulators to begin a pivotal trial for patients who failed to have their disease cured by prior therapies. The Cambridge, MA-based company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VRTX]]) said it will enroll 650 patients in the study, called Realize. Vertex is pursuing the study, the first pivotal trial among the difficult-to-treat patient population, after a prior study called Prove 3 showed in June that telaprevir eliminated the virus for 52 percent of patients for at least 12 weeks.
Author: Luke Timmerman
Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.
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