Anyone else seen this before

ir.interceptpharma.com/news...

[alfredthegreat]

Hi there. Thank you for posting this. I have just taken a look. It looks very promising and it's good news when a trial turns out to appear successful. Regards Alf.

[Wass71]

Hi, I took part in the phase 3 trial for OCA for PBC a few years ago. The drug got licensed very quickly, as PBC is classed as a rare disease they got approval very quickly. The drug was very expensive, the NHS price was more than £2000 per month. As such it was only being prescribed by Hepatologists in liver units. I don't know if that price has gone down. I'm feeling a tad cynical, as I wonder if they had always wanted the Nash market - the disease which is set to be a ticking time bomb in the UK, USA and many other countries. An enormous market compared to PBC, but by starting with PBC they could use the rare disease fast track, get it to market, then its just a case of filing for additional uses. Very suspicious I think???

If it works, that's great, but it seems they're having similar problems as they did with PBC, the higher (more effective) doses, cause itching in almost 50% of participants, almost 10% withdrew due to severe itching. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.

Best wishes

XWassX

[Bootandall in reply to Wass71]

You have done an insightful analysis on the issues of what and how research gets funded by the medical field, always driven by profit from drug manufacturers. This was extremely interesting to me, thanks. I hope you are feeling well as can be expected. 😘

[davianne in reply to Wass71]

A very intuitive post Wass, like you I am always sceptical when drug companies develop drugs for comparatively rare conditions to get approval by the back door, and then broaden the scope to include more common conditions.

David