May 28, 2026
Provided Image/GSK
Bepirovirsen, a new drug for hepatitis B, functionally cures 20% of patients within 48 weeks, clinical studies show. The drug awaits FDA approval. The image above is a scientific rendering of the hepatitis B virus.
Hepatitis B is sometimes referred to as the "silent killer" because people often lack symptoms – and yet the severe, long-term form of the disease can cause liver failure and death.
But new evidence suggests that a drug called bepirovirsen functionally cures 20% of patients with long-term hepatitis B within 48 weeks. A functional cure is achieved when virus levels are undetectable and it is deemed safe to discontinue medication.
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The results of two clinical trials, conducted by the pharmaceutical companies Ionis Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline, were published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. They involved more than 1,800 people in 29 countries.
"It's the first major advance in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B in decades," Dr. William Jarnagin, a surgeon and liver specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, told the New York Times.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should respond to GSK's application for approval of bepirovirsen sometime in October, according to news reports.
Hepatitis B results from a viral infection that causes liver inflammation. It is spread from mothers to their children during birth, through semen and other bodily fluids, and through exposure to contaminated needles. Hepatitis B can lead to short-duration illness that naturally resolves on its own. But chronic hepatitis B, the most dangerous form of the disease, can be life-threatening and has no cure.
The World Health Organization estimates that 240 million people have chronic hepatitis B, and there are 1.2 million new infections a year. About 640,000 people in the United States have chronic hepatitis B, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
There is a safe and effective hepatitis B vaccine that the American Academy of Pediatrics has long recommended all infants receive at birth. The CDC controversially ruled in December to recommend delaying the first shot for babies born to women who test negative for hepatitis B.
Treatment for people with chronic hepatitis B involves surveillance, the use of antiviral medication to reduce the risk of passing the disease to others and sometimes surgery to remove part of the liver if cancer is involved or even liver transplants, the Cleveland Clinic says.
But there has been no cure for chronic hepatitis B. While current treatments help prevent the virus from replicating and from causing cirrhosis, they do not eradicate it or prevent cancers resulting from it.
