Boehringer Ingelheim has set up an online education portal for hepatitis C patients, their carers and healthcare providers.

The launch of the US-focused HepCRedefined.com site came on the day the pharma company moved its interferon-free hep C regimen, which combines faldaprevir and BI 207127, into phase III trials.

Boehringer said it worked in close collaboration with hepatitis C community advocates as well as healthcare practitioners on the new site, which it hopes will “redefine the HCV [hepatitis C virus] journey”.

Steve Smith, vice president of established brands at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, said: "Through our work with the HCV community to develop HepCRedefined.com, we hope to offer support to the many individuals impacted by HCV with useful information and interactive resources that are easy to find. 

“The more we empower ourselves to learn about the challenges associated with HCV, the better we will be able to provide patient management and come closer to a cure for this disease."

The highly visual website provides a wide variety of resources on topics such as caregiver stress and a patient's readiness for long-term therapy, with an easy-to-use function that allows them to be embedded on other websites for maximum 'shareability'.

Other resources on the site include a video series for healthcare providers with hepatitis C tips and an interactive checklist for patients who are getting ready for treatment.

"The entire HCV community is in need of simple tools and resources to talk about the disease in an informed, supportive way. There is information about HCV across the web, but HepCRedefined.com is designed to aggregate straightforward and accurate information in a single virtual destination," said Michael Ninburg, executive director of patient group the Hepatitis Education Project.

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