Are new hepatitis C drugs all they’re cracked up to be?

The lead author of a Cochrane review1 casting doubt on drugs hailed as a cure for hepatitis C shows no sign of wavering in the face of a strong rejoinder from some of the UK’s leading liver specialists.

Janus Christian Jakobsen, chief physician at the Copenhagen trial unit in Denmark, told The BMJ that the evidence from 138 trials reviewed by the Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Group showed no evidence that direct acting antivirals had any effect on hepatitis C morbidity or all cause mortality. “The most important conclusion of our review is that there is no evidence of the clinical effects of the drugs,” he said. “No evidence at all.”

These drugs have been approved as cost effective by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), but such is their cost that NHS England has won the right to introduce them slowly. For …