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Photo: ID Care
The president of an infectious disease medical practice with an office in Somerset is the co-author of a major study on a new drug to fight hepatitis C.
The article co-written by Dr. Ronald Nahass, president of ID Care, appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study, sponsored by Gilead Sciences and performed with a test population of 440 patients, showed that a single pill given for 12 weeks cured 94 percent of the patients treated.
This treatment compared favorably to other, longer courses of treatment that involve more drugs, according to a press release about the article.
No patients had to stop the treatment due to side effects, the release said.
The initiative resulted in a series of articles on new treatments for hepatitis C documenting results with as few as eight weeks of treatment and with different treatment regimens developed by three different companies – Bristol Meyers Squibb, Abbvie, and Gilead Sciences, according to the release. Findings in each of the studies showed cure rates of more than 90 percent without previously experienced dose-limiting toxicities.
Gilead’s drug Sovaldi, a new treatment for hepatitis C, had $2.3 billion in sales in the first quarter of 2014, which beat the record for any drug in its first whole year on the market, according to the release.
Dr. Nahass and ID Care have performed over 25 clinical trials for new medical treatments of Hepatitis C for Gilead, Merck, Abbvie, and Bristol Meyers Squibb. Previous to the work with Hepatitis C, ID Care had performed over 80 studies for HIV medications, many of which are now on the market. ID Care is the largest organization in New Jersey – and the second-largest in the United States – dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of infectious diseases.
ID Care has an office at 81 Veronica Ave. in Somerset.
