For how we live.
Bepirovirsen, cleared on 20 October, is the first antisense drug for chronic hepatitis B. In two trials about one in five carefully selected patients stayed virus-free off all treatment; none on placebo did.
Two-year blinded data and open-label follow-up from the ELATIVE trial show the drug kept improving liver blood tests in primary biliary cholangitis — but the endpoint is still a surrogate, and the trial is industry-run.
Two GSK-funded phase 3 trials found roughly 20% of patients on bepirovirsen reached a functional cure at 72 weeks versus none on placebo — alongside more adverse events and liver-enzyme rises.
The LiverScreen project ran transient elastography across nine countries, then sent everyone who screened positive to a hepatologist. The gap between the two numbers is the interesting part.
In a single-centre trial of 100 patients with decompensated cirrhosis, six months of atorvastatin cut recurrent complications from 72% to 36% — a striking but preliminary result needing larger confirmation.