Roche pays milestone for HCV collaboration

Roche has paid a $7.5 million (3.9 million pounds) milestone payment to Pharmasset, a drug development company, for a collaboration involving the development of therapies for patients infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Pharmasset, an American company, said the payment was received after meeting a manufacturing milestone defined in the terms of the collaboration.

The companies have been working on nucleoside polymerase inhibitors, which includes one therapy in phase I development, R7128.

Dr Darryl Cleary, Pharmasset’s vice president of manufacturing, commented: “We are pleased to have completed several key chemistry process development and [chemistry manufacturing control] activities for our HCV programme.”

He added that the two companies’ collaboration had “effectively overcome” a rate-limiting step often found clinical development programmes.

Last week, Pharmasset announced the start of a phase I trial for R71278. Schaefer Price, president and chief executive officer of Pharmasset, said his company believes that polymerase inhibitors could potentially become an “important component” of HCB therapy.

The company also has collaborations with Bukwang Pharmaceuticals and Primagen.