This Friday, Gilead, a Foster City, California based company, announced its results from two late-stage trials on the efficacy of its Viread on patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV).

The positive results of the 48 week trials were presented at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases annual meeting in Boston (Nov. 2-6).

Viread, or tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, is currently the Gilead product prescribed as antiretroviral agent for the treatment of HIV. On the other hand, Gilead has another product Hepsera, or adefovir dipivoxil, which is already approved for treating the liver infection in adults.

In these trials Viread and Hepsera were administrated for 48 weeks in two patients’ groups. One group had HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B and the other had HBeAg-positive hepatitis B. Both studies showed superior results in case of treatment with Viread than in case of treatment with especially HBV designed Hepsera. Both medicines were well tolerated by patients in both two studies.

These results help Viread to have the basis to apply to regulatory authorities in the United States and European Union, in order to market Viread as a treatment for HBV.

Chronic hepatitis B is among the top ten causes of mortality, accounting worldwide an estimated number of 400 million people.