Gilead Sciences and GlobeImmune have entered into an exclusive worldwide licence and collaboration agreement to develop and market therapeutic vaccine products to treat chronic hepatitis B in conjunction with Viread (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) and other oral therapies.
Gilead will pay GlobeImmune an upfront payment and provide support for continued development of GlobeImmune’s hepatitis B therapeutic vaccine programme through Phase Ia clinical trials.
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GlobeImmune will also receive additional payments based on achievement of development programme, as well as royalties on future potential net sales.
The parties expect that the combination of a therapeutic vaccine with oral suppressive antiviral therapy could help increase surface antigen loss with seroconversion.
GlobeImmune R&D senior vice-president and chief medical officer David Apelian said that earlier proof-of-concept studies in hepatitis C suggested that the combination of company’s Tarmogen immunotherapy products and oral suppressive antiviral therapy will help eliminate the cells harbouring the hepatitis B virus, thus increasing seroconversion within a finite period.
Gilead R&D executive vice-president and chief scientific officer Norbert Bischofberger said they hope that this approach will allow them to explore whether adaptive immunomodulatory approaches to hepatitis B will help improve surface antigen seroconversion, and eliminate the need for life-long daily therapy.
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