**7. Future therapy**

As alluded to in the sections above, DAA research is producing large quantities of favorable data, particularly in genotypes prevalent in Europe and the United States. Numerous clinical trials have been completed. More trials are ongoing or are recruiting. Naturally, head-to-head trials are needed to differentiate between many of the already known successful regimens, but few will agree to this in the short term. Future research should aim to improve the currently available classes of HCV drugs with the goal of limiting significant side effects. Specifically, we hope that all newly developed NS3-4A protease inhibitors, nucleoside/nucleotide ana‐ logues, nonnucleoside inhibitors of HCV NS5B, and NS5A inhibitors share a similar highpotency, pan-genotypic antiviral activity, and high barrier to resistance. In the distant future, perhaps DAAs will have lost their utility as research on vaccination continues [96].
