{"id":52285,"date":"2026-05-30T10:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T10:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/52285\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T10:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T10:05:18","slug":"experimental-hepatitis-b-treatment-was-a-functional-cure-for-nearly-1-in-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/52285\/","title":{"rendered":"Experimental hepatitis B treatment was a \u2018functional cure\u2019 for nearly 1 in 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew covers the biopharma industry, scientific research, and public health across the continent. You can reach Andrew confidentially on Signal at drewqjoseph.71.<\/p>\n

An experimental medicine helped vanquish hepatitis B in clinical trials in nearly 1 in 5 people with chronic infections caused by the virus, far outperforming available treatment options in an illness that kills 1 million people every year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some 250 million to 300 million people globally have chronic hepatitis B infections, which can cause serious issues including cirrhosis and liver cancer. Current treatments, known as nucleoside analogues, lead to so-called functional cures<\/a> in only 1% to 3% of patients.<\/p>\n

But in a pair of Phase 3 trials, GSK\u2019s bepirovirsen, or \u201cbepi,\u201d helped 20% and 19% of patients achieve functional cures, with no patients on placebo reaching that point, according to data released Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

STAT+ Exclusive Story<\/p>\n

Already have an account? Log in<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"STAT+\"\/<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"STAT+\"\/
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tThis article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers
\n\t\t\t\tUnlock this article \u2014 plus in-depth analysis, newsletters, premium events, and news alerts.<\/p>\n

Already have an account? Log in<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tIndividual plans<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tGroup plans<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tView All Plans<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTo read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew covers the biopharma industry, scientific research, and public health across the continent. You can reach Andrew confidentially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20784],"tags":[11314,25930,20785,25931,2029,20102],"class_list":["post-52285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gsk","tag-drug-development","tag-global-health","tag-gsk","tag-infectious-diseases","tag-pharmaceuticals","tag-stat"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116662968197915602","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}