Mircludex B against hepatitis B

The company "Hepatera" begins carrying out
Phase Ib-IIa Clinical Trial
of the drug Mirkludex B

The biotech company "Hepatera", established at the end of 2011 with the aim of developing and commercializing innovative drugs for the treatment of liver diseases, announced the inclusion of the first three patients with chronic viral hepatitis B in the clinical trial of the Ib-IIa phase of the drug Myrcludex B (Myrcludex B). It is expected that the results of the study, which was launched in Russia in the largest specialized centers, will be received by the end of 2013.

Resident of the Biomedical cluster "Skolkovo" company "Hepatera", invested by the venture fund "Maxwell Biotech", created with the participation of the capital of JSC "RVC", is developing a drug for the treatment of chronic viral hepatitis B and D Mirkludex B together with the German biotechnology company MYR GmbH, a portfolio company of one of the largest European High-Tech venture funds Grunderfonds.

Despite the widespread introduction of vaccination, chronic hepatitis B still remains one of the unresolved problems of medicine. According to the World Health Organization, about 2 billion people in the world are carriers of the hepatitis B virus, 400 million of them suffer from a chronic form of the disease. Every year, about 50 million new cases of hepatitis B virus are registered in the world, and about 2 million people die annually from conditions caused by this infection. Joint infection with hepatitis D virus, which occurs in approximately 5% of cases, significantly aggravates the course of the disease and leads to complications and mortality 2 times more often than monoinfection. At the moment, for most patients with hepatitis D, the possibilities of specific treatment are limited or absent.

Professor Elena Vasilyevna Volchkova, Consultant of the State Institution "Infectious Clinical Hospital No. 2" of the Moscow Department of Health, MD, Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State University, Chief Researcher:
"It is of great importance to us that we take part in such a large international project and have the opportunity to be the first to evaluate the effectiveness of Mircludex in patients. We hope that the positive results of this clinical trial will allow the company to continue working on a drug that implements a completely new approach in the treatment of patients suffering from hepatitis B, and will be able to significantly improve and simplify existing therapy regimens."

Alexander Alexandrov, Scientific Director of MYR GmbH:
"We are very pleased that Mirkludex B has moved to the stage of clinical trials in the group of patients who can receive significant benefits from treatment with this drug. In this study, we focus not only on safety studies, but also on measuring the level of HBsAg, which in most cases is not affected by existing treatment regimens. Now that the receptor that the hepatitis B virus binds to has been identified, we hope that the results of the clinical trial will be an important milestone in the fight against this serious disease."

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru13.12.2012