Article
NIAID Trial to Evaluate Community-Based Hepatitis C Treatment
Gilead will be providing Harvoni free of cost to conduct a 600-person trial co-sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to evaluate if primary care physicians and other healthcare providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, can use a new antiviral therapy as effectively as specialist physicians.
​Officials from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the city of Washington, DC, launched a clinical trial to examine whether primary care physicians and other healthcare providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, can use a new antiviral therapy as effectively as specialist physicians to treat people with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The trial, which will involve 600 adult DC residents infected with HCV alone or co-infected with HCV and HIV, also will examine the long-term effects of the treatment.
The study, called ASCEND, is co-sponsored by the NIH’s Clinical Center and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), with additional support from the NIH Office of AIDS Research. The study is being conducted as part of the Archive DC. Partnership for HIV/AIDS Progress, a program that aims to reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS and associated diseases, such as hepatitis C, in the District of Columbia. More than 3 million people in the United States are infected with HCV.
Gilead Sciences, will be providing Harvoni it free-of-charge for use in the ASCEND study.
Read the complete press release by NIH:
