Sobering statistics show that pharma's work in hepatitis is far from done, says Janssen's Lawrence Blatt

While drug developers deserve credit for the enormous progress achieved in hepatology, use of the word ‘cured’ can perhaps be seen as unhelpful given that global statistics paint a very different picture of the impact of viral hepatitis.

It is true that, with highly-effective direct-acting antivirals, the hepatitis C virus (HCV) can be cured within two or three months, but no such cure exists for hepatitis B and the number of deaths caused by both in 2015 was enough for the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare this a major public health problem in need of an urgent response.

Noting that viral hepatitis caused 1.34 million deaths around the world in 2015, a number comparable to those brought about by tuberculosis and higher than the fatalities linked to HIV, the WHO has called for the elimination of this threat by 2030.