Human Genome calls hepatitis drug sleeper product

As Human Genome Sciences Inc investors focus on the eagerly-anticipated experimental lupus drug Benlysta, a "sleeper product" for hepatitis C could provide additional billions in future sales, a company official said on Tuesday. Human Genome Sciences Inc is awaiting a US approval decision later this year for Zalbin, an interferon that would compete with Roche Holding AG's big-selling Pegasys and Merck & Co's Inc Pegintron."Our thought is that any time you would use a weekly interferon, you should use Zalbin because you would have to take half as many injections and it would do the same thing," Barry Labinger, Human Genome's chief commercial officer, said in an interview at the BIO CEO & Investor conference in New York. "The goal is to maintain the antiviral efficacy of an interferon by boosting the normal immune response, while also reducing the burden of treatment," Labinger said. Zalbin is a sleeper for two reasons. The other reason is that scientific and investor focus on hepatitis C is firmly on a new class of antiviral drugs being developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc, Merck and others that look set to sharply increase cure rates for the serious liver disease while potentially cutting treatment duration. But those drugs are being tested in combination with standard treatments and Human Genome sees Zalbin as an attractive replacement for the current interferons.