Race to cure HBV moves to targeting the reservoir

There’s now compelling evidence that eliminating viral transcripts with antisense oligonucleotides can lead to a functional HBV cure in some patients, and early clinical data from in vivo gene editing and epigenetic silencing therapies suggest that directly targeting the viral DNA reservoir could take that progress a step further.

Bepirovirsen from GSK plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK) and Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:IONS), PBGENE‑HBV from Precision Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ:DTIL), and epigenetic silencers from Tune Therapeutics Inc. and nChroma Bio Inc. have all converged on chronic HBV as a proving ground, positioning the disease as a key proof-of-concept indication for next-generation nucleic acid and genome editing platforms...