Blocking and watching HCV
Papers from Stanford Universityresearchers and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-The Rockefeller University team provide a new target for HCV and a new way to study the virus in real time, respectively. The Stanford group has already identified two small molecule inhibitors of the target-the 4BAH2 motif of non-structural protein 4B-and exclusively licensed them to Eiger Biopharmaceuticals Inc.1
Standard care for chronic HCV is combined therapy with pegylated interferon-a and ribavirin. However, the treatment is only effective in just over 50% of patients and side effects include flu-like illness, fever, fatigue, hematological disease, alopecia and depression.2,3 The response rate is highest in patients infected with HCV genotypes 2 or 3 and lowest in patients infected with genotypes 1 or 4.2...