Caprion Proteomics announced this week that it has identified a panel of protein biomarkers that could be useful in predicting patient response to a new treatment for hepatitis C.
The company said that the biomarkers were correlated with sustained viral response or viral cure in response to a combined treatment of pegylated-interferon, ribavirin, and telaprevir, a drug candidate for hepatitis C.
The study was part of a collaboration between Caprion and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, the maker of telaprevir. Caprion used its s mass spectrometry-based proteomics platform CellCarta to discover the markers by comparing the expression levels of thousands of proteins in blood samples from hepatitis C patients.
The study also suggested potential differences within the segments of the hepatitis C patient population that could be used for stratification and tailoring individual therapies, Caprion said.
Research on the biomarkers in larger patient populations is currently underway, and the company plans to perform further validation assays on the panel using its multiple-reaction monitoring mass spec platform.