Medivir AB (STO:MVIR-B) announced today that the Russian Ministry of Health has approved Sovriad® (simeprevir) for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C genotype 1 infection, in combination with peginterferon alfa and ribavirin, in adults with compensated liver disease (including cirrhosis) who are treatment naïve or who have failed previous interferon therapy (pegylated or non-pegylated) with or without ribavirin. Russia will be the first country within EMEA to gain access to simeprevir, which represents a significant advance in hepatitis C treatment.
"The Russian approval is another important event for simeprevir and provides the hepatitis C patients in Russia with a new HCV treatment" said Maris Hartmanis CEO, Medivir.
Statistics provided by the World Health Organization in 2011 showed that Russia has the third-highest prevalence of HCV, with an estimated 3.7 million infected). Though exact data for current rates is not available, in January 2014 alone, there were 4.858 new cases of HCV diagnosed in Russia. This reflects an increase of 3.5 percent in comparison to January 2013[2]).
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