More people living with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) are expected to enroll in the health care system during the upcoming year; in preparation, a public-private consortium has been formed to share data and funding, according to a statement by the University of Florida, which is part of the consortium. The likely influx is timed to the Affordable Care Act (the ACA, or ObamaCare), which begins enrolling patients this October for coverage starting January 2014. The Hepatitis C Therapeutic Registry and Research Network (HCV-TARGET) consortium also includes the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and nearly a dozen pharmaceutical companies. They will begin sharing data to discover how newly approved hep therapies are used outside of clinical trials. Their research will be drawn from nearly 2,500 patients in more than 103 community sites across 31 states, Puerto Rico, Canada and Europe. The effort will focus on populations typically underrepresented in most trials, such as seniors, African Americans and patients with cirrhosis, to determine the success of hep C treatment in diversified, real-world scenarios.

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