BASEL, Switzerland, Dec 22 (AFP) - Sufferers of the life-threatening disease hepatitis B have a new treatment to hand after Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said on Wednesday that Switzerland has approved its Pegasys drug.
The green light for the breakthrough treatment will also be a financial boon for the Swiss drug maker as Pegasys is already the worldwide market leader for the treatment of hepatitis C after its launch in 2002.
"The market for chronic hepatitis B, which affects 350 million people worldwide, represents some 400 million Swiss francs (347 million dollars, 259 million euros)," a spokesperson for Roche told AFP.
For its part, hepatitis C affects about 170 million people in the world.
With its expansion into the area of hepatitis B, Pegasys should achieve sales of some 1.75 billion Swiss francs in 2005 up from more than one billion Swiss francs estimated from this year, said the private Swiss bank Vontobel.
Roche hoped to achieve similar approval for the hepatitis B drug in the United States and European Union at the start of 2005.
Hepatitis B is 100-times more contagious than HIV/AIDS, according to the Swiss information centre on hepatitis.
It is contracted through sexual intercourse, blood contamination and also by a pregnant mother to her unborn child.
The immune system is unable to combat about five to 10 percent of all cases, which develop into chronic infections that can cause progressive liver disease.
"Approximately one million people die annually, making it the 10th leading cause of death worldwide," Roche said in a statement.
It has been a good week for Roche medicine-wise after it announced on Monday that the health authority Swissmedic had approved its cancer drug Avastin.
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