A new drug for the treatment of hepatitis C has shown promise in a private study. The drug uses a new strategy to save the hepatitis C virus from replicating. The new DNA-based drug targets a small RNA molecule in the liver which is required by hepatitis C to replicate as per the researchers.

By restricting the molecule SPC3649 reduced hepatitis C virus levels in the liver and in the bloodstream in chimpanzees which received the highest dose by 350-fold.

"It is a conceptually new approach. Instead of directly targeting the virus, the drug targeted a liver-specific molecule necessary for replication," if we take that away from the virus, it can't replicate anymore," said study author Robert Lanford, a scientist at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Texas.

Hepatitis C infects the liver and is spread by contact with the blood of someone who is infected previously. About 70 to 80 percent of those with the virus have no symptoms initially, according to the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.