UPDATE 1-Vertex sees profit soon after hep C drug launch-CEO

* CEO sees telaprevir launch first half 2011

* Expects very high value from JAK-3 partnership

By Bill Berkrot

NEW YORK, June 10 (Reuters) - Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc's(VRTX.O) new CEO said the biotechnology company would become profitable shortly after it begins selling its high profile hepatitis C drug, likely in early 2011.

"We expect very quickly to become profitable soon after the launch of telaprevir," Vertex Chief Executive Matthew Emmens said at the Goldman Sachs Healthcare Conference on Wednesday.

Emmens said he expects telaprevir, which is completing late-stage clinical trials, to be approved in the United States in the first half of 2011.

Telaprevir has been closely watched for years by both the investment and medical communities as it has demonstrated in trials the ability to cure patients of the serious liver disease at a much higher rate than current treatments, and potentially in half the time as the typical 48-week regimen.

The drug is widely expected to become a multibillion-dollar medicine, and Emmens said telaprevir would enjoy more than a decade of patent protection post launch.

The telaprevir patent "lasts well into mid 2020s range and, with extensions, potentially beyond that," Emmens said.

He was asked if the hepatitis C market could dry up before that time with a potential cure available.

"When you look at hepatitis C with 180 million people globally, this market isn't going away in my lifetime," Emmens said. "Best case scenario, there's still a million people in the U.S. with hepatitis C in 2020."

Telaprevir is being tested in combination with the standard therapies of interferon and ribaviron. Emmens said the company is looking for other potential combinations with telaprevir that could eliminate one of both of the older drugs.

Interferon is a notoriously difficult drug for patients to take as it causes flu-like symptoms that can last for the entire treatment duration of nearly a year.

"Patients want a regimen without interferon," said Emmens, who recently replaced longtime Vertex CEO Joshua Boger.

Emmens stressed that Vertex, unlike some biotech companies, would not be a one-drug outfit.

He said the company was making great strides in developing its experimental cystic fibrosis treatment, and said he expects to "get a very high value" from a partnership deal on a JAK-3 inhibitor in Vertex's developmental pipeline.