Gilead shares dive 14% after Hep C trial patients relapse

Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) said Friday the majority of hepatitis C patients in a trial experienced a viral relapse in their disease after being treated with an investigational drug labelled GS-7977, sending its share price down.

The biopharmaceutical company develops and commercializes therapeutics to treat life threatening diseases globally.

The company’s share price plunged 14.32 percent at $46.96 in trade on the Nadaq on Friday afternoon.

A clinical trial called “Electron” included an arm testing GS-7977 in patients with a form of hepatitis C known as genotype 1.

Gilead said a majority of these patients experienced viral relapse within four weeks of completing 12 weeks of treatment of GS-7977 plus another drug called ribavirin.

Of the 10 subjects enrolled, data were available for eight, among these eight patients, six experienced viral relapse, the company said. Two patients have not yet relapsed, but they have only reached a two week post-treatment time point, Gilead added.

California-based Gilead said that data suggests additional direct acting antivirals may be necessary to effectively treat this patient population.

Gilead’s executive vice president, Norbert Bischofberger, said the company will “continue to explore a number of therapeutic approaches” including combinations with other oral antivirals.

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