In The News

Results of Phase 3 POISE Trial of Ocaliva® (Obeticholic Acid) for the Treatment of PBC

NEW YORK, Aug. 17, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:ICPT), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics to treat non-viral, progressive liver diseases, today announced that the New England Journal of Medicine published the key results of the Phase 3 POISE trial of Ocaliva (obeticholic acid) for the treatment…

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Who Is Getting Hep C Treatment?

The Hepatitis C virus causes progressive liver damage and is the leading cause of liver transplants in the U.S., yet its gravity is frequently disregarded. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more people die from Hepatitis C than from 60 other infectious diseases combined. Despite major advances in Hepatitis C treatment,…

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The Drug Costs $95K. Its Maker 'Dodged' $10B in Taxes

A pharmaceutical company that has in recent years made billions of dollars on hepatitis C treatments—the three the FDA has approved range from $75,000 to $94,500—has been named a “price gouger” and “tax dodger” in a new report. Gilead Sciences, the sixth richest drugmaker in the world, “is making a fortune selling essential drugs to…

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FDA approves first pill to treat all forms of hepatitis C

Federal health officials on Tuesday approved the first pill to treat all major forms of hepatitis C, the latest in a series of drug approvals that have reshaped treatment of the liver-destroying virus. The Food and Drug Administration approved the combination pill, Epclusa, from Gilead Sciences, for patients with and without liver damage. The new…

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Now There Are Many (Stages)

Now There Are Many (Stages) Where Before There Was One: In Search of a Pathophysiological Classification of Cirrhosis Guadalupe Garcia-Tsao,1 Scott Friedman,2 John Iredale,3 and Massimo Pinzani4 For more than a century and a half, the description of a liver as “cirrhotic” was sufficient to connote both a pathological and clinical status, and to assign…

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How coffee could be your liver's savior

How coffee could be your liver’s savior: Drink shown to protect against a host of deadly diseases Drink may protect against certain cancers that affect the womb and liver World Health Organisation says no link between coffee and bladder cancer New research concludes that coffee protects against fatty liver disease, liver fibrosis and liver cirrhosis…

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Federal Standard May Be Thwarting Some Liver Transplant Patients

Federal Standard May Be Thwarting Some Liver Transplant Patients By EDITOR • JUN 7, 2016 Did revised federal standards make transplant centers more averse to risk and encourage them to drop sicker patients who might affect the hospitals’ patient survival rates? Originally published on June 9, 2016 4:47 pm For the roughly 15,000 people who…

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Changes to MELD score to include serum sodium

(Confusing at first glance but the numbers in the squares show how much your current meld score will go up dependent upon your serum sodium value.) Effective Date Jan 11 2016 NOV 16, 2015 | LIVER/INTESTINE, TRANSPLANT CENTER   New Resources Available for Liver Transplant Programs On January 11, 2016, OPTN Policy 9.1 (MELD Score) will…

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