Hopes for hepatitis B ‘cure’ with China-led treatment advance

Drug combination reaches key threshold for ‘functional cure’ of chronic liver infection that affects more than 250 million people worldwide

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The virus that causes hepatitis B can hide in human liver cells by integrating itself into the human genome, making it extremely difficult to cure. Photo: Shutterstock Images

Published: 10:00am, 11 Dec 2024

An international team of researchers led by Chinese medical experts has announced a discovery that could lead to a treatment for a liver virus that infects more than 250 million people worldwide – with China home to more cases than any other nation.

The scientists found that xalnesiran, a small interfering RNA molecule, used either alone or coupled with an immunomodulator – drugs that change the immune system so it works more effectively – can cure about one-third of hepatitis B patients in the study.

This number is a “substantial percentage” that the research and clinical community has been pursuing for nearly a decade, according to the researchers.

The study – led by Hou Jinlin of Nanfang Hospital, at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou and Chinese infectious disease expert Zhang Wenhong of Huashan Hospital, at Fudan University in Shanghai – was published on December 5 in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Hepatitis B is a lifelong infection of the liver caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV) that can remain asymptomatic for decades. Patients who are not aware that they have the virus can develop severely damaged livers. Between 15 to 40 per cent of untreated people are diagnosed with life-threatening diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Because the virus can hide in human liver cells by integrating itself into the human genome, it is extremely difficult to cure.

Antiviral drugs such as tenofovir or entecavir – the traditional therapeutics for most patients – can inhibit viral replication and bring hepatitis under control, but they cannot eradicate HBV, and most people who start treatment must continue it for life.