Glecaprevir is a is an NS3/4A protease inhibitor, which is a drug that negatively effects the protease enzyme. Protease is found within the Hepatitis C virus and prevents protein cleavage; the breakdown of proteins into smaller peptides and amino acids.
Treatment of Glecaprevire for Hep C is in the form of a pill that is taken orally with food and comes with three doses. It is usually recommended for adults with Hepatitis C in the genome type 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Common side-effects of Glecaprevir Hep C Treatments were found to be headaches and fatigue.
One form of Glecaprevir Hep C Treatment that is available in the US market is Mavyret, which is manufactured by the Illinois-based pharmaceutical company AbbVie Inc. Each tablet contains 100 milligrams of Glecaprevir and 40 milligrams of Pibrentasvir, an antiviral agent. An eight-week course of this treatment is approximately $26,400.00 USD, 12 weeks for $39,600 and 16 weeks for $52,800, all at wholesale acquisition cost.
The eight-week treatment is recommended for naïve noncirrhotic patients with genotypes 1-6, the 12-week treatment is recommended for patients with compensated cirrhosis, and the 16-week treatment being recommended for subsets of treatment-experienced patients.
All patients must be tested prior to starting the Glecaprevir Hep C treatment in order to gauge the level of the Hepatitis C virus that the patient has.
Although the treatment was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for all six genotypes, not all of them had the same response rate. The genotypes 1, 2, 5, and 6 all had a 98% to 100% response rate, while the genotype 3 only had a 95% response rate and the genotype 4 had a 93% response rate. The treatment only had a few cases of people relapsing, which adds to the overall success that it has had.
The Glecaprevir Hep C Treatment is not recommended for patients with a moderate hepatic impairment.
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