GILD Gilead Sciences Inc

By Peter Loftus 

Three scientists whose work helped transform hepatitis C treatment, including the lead inventor of a multibillion-dollar drug from Gilead Sciences Inc., are among the winners of the 2016 Lasker Awards, one of the highest honors in medical research.

The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, a New York-based foundation that supports medical research, has given the awards annually for 71 years. Some 87 past winners have also won Nobel Prizes, according to the foundation.

One of the three winners of this year's Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, announced Tuesday, is Michael J. Sofia, 58 years old, the lead inventor of the drug sofosbuvir, which was partly named after him. In studies, the drug has shortened treatment duration, and led to higher cure rates and less severe side effects than older treatments for hepatitis C virus infection.

Sofosbuvir is the active ingredient in the brand-name drug Sovaldi, introduced in the U.S. by Gilead Sciences in 2013, and one of two drugs in Gilead's combination pill Harvoni, which came out in 2014. Partly due to high price tags that have drawn criticism, the drugs had about $19 billion in combined sales last year, making them among the most lucrative new drug launches in the industry's history.

"It's pretty astounding to see how this drug has been able to transform people's lives and certainly really change the future for" people with hepatitis C, Dr. Sofia said in an interview. Up to 3.9 million Americans have chronic hepatitis C infection, which can damage the liver and be life-threatening if not treated.

Dr. Sofia, who trained as a chemist, led the effort to create sofosbuvir while working at a small biotech company, Pharmasset Inc., which Gilead acquired in 2012 for about $11 billion. He left Gilead later in 2012 to cofound his own company, now known as Arbutus Biopharma, where he serves as chief scientific officer. Arbutus is developing new treatments for the hepatitis B virus.

Dr. Sofia said he recognizes the high cost of the Gilead drugs -- at least $1,000 a pill before discounts -- has been controversial. He said Gilead made a "business decision" about pricing after he left the company. He doesn't receive any royalties from sales of the drugs, he said. Dr. Sofia received cash for his Pharmasset stock options in the Gilead acquisition; he declined to say how much.

A Gilead spokeswoman said the company congratulates Dr. Sofia. She said Sovaldi and Harvoni save lives and reduce long-term health-care costs. Gilead provides discounts off the list prices to most government programs and private health insurers, she said.

When Dr. Sofia joined Pharmasset in 2005 after a stint at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., the standard treatments for hepatitis C had limitations, including a cure rate of about 40% and difficult side effects.

Dr. Sofia and his team designed various compounds to more aggressively attack hepatitis C virus by interfering with its ability to replicate inside liver cells. They eventually produced sofosbuvir, the first in the class of drugs known as a "nucleotide analog NS5B polymerase inhibitor" to reach market.

Subsequent studies in humans showed that it cured more than 90% of patients who took it.

Dr. Sofia's co-winners of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award are Ralf F.W. Bartenschlager, 58, head of the department of molecular virology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany; and Charles M. Rice, 64, professor in virology at the Rockefeller University in New York. They developed ways to grow hepatitis C virus in a laboratory setting -- a key step in allowing for the testing of various strategies to treat the virus.

The 2016 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award goes to three scientists who discovered the way that cells from humans and other animals adapt to changes in the availability of oxygen, a key to survival: William G Kaelin Jr., 58, a professor in the department of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School; Peter J. Ratcliffe, 62, who holds research posts at Oxford University and the Francis Crick Institute in the U.K.; and Gregg L. Semenza, 60, professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Another scientist, Bruce M. Alberts, 78, a biochemist at the University of California, San Francisco, won the Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award for his discoveries in DNA replication and protein biochemistry, and his leadership of scientific organizations.

The winners will receive the awards Sept. 23 in New York. The awards carry an honorarium of $250,000 for each of the three categories.

Write to Peter Loftus at peter.loftus@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 13, 2016 00:15 ET (04:15 GMT)

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