Hep C drug yields high cure rate in study

NEW YORK (AP) - Abbott Laboratories says its experimental hepatitis C drug regimen cured 99 percent of patients with the most common and hardest-to-treat type of the disease in a midstage study.

Abbott says 99 percent of patients who took its three-drug regimen and the drugs Ritonavair and ribavirin had undetectable virus levels after 12 weeks of treatment. The company says it observed a 93 percent cure rate in a group of patients who were not helped by other treatments.

Patients in the trial had genotype 1 hepatitis C, which is the most common type in the Western world and the hardest to treat. The regimen did not include interferon, a standard component of hepatitis C therapy that causes severe side effects.