Wyeth’s new hepatitis C drug achieves proof of concept

Wyeth has announced that its investigational therapy for hepatitis C, HCV-796, has achieved proof of concept in a phase Ib clinical trial.

Early data for the drug, developed in conjunction with ViroPharma, is expected to become available at the end of August, while preliminary data suggests has been promising enough for the companies to consider phase II trials, with dosing to take place in the last quarter of 2006.

As a result of reaching this latest milestone, Wyeth has agreed to purchase $10 million (5.3 million pounds) worth of ViroPharma shares.

The two companies have been collaborating since 1999 and ViroPharma claims that HCV-796 is the “most promising” compound the companies have developed yet.

Dr Robert Ruffolo, Wyeth’s president of research, remarked: “With HCV-796, we now have for the first time in our collaboration a unique compound with a novel mechanism of action that has achieved proof of concept in combination with pegylated interferon.”

“We are excited to reach this milestone and to be collaborating with ViroPharma to move this promising compound toward phase II trials,” he added.

ViroPharma is also working on maribavir, a former GlaxoSmithKline drug prospect designed to fight cytomegalovirus, although its primary clinical development focus is in hepatitis C, a viral disease that infects around four million Amercians.

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