Chimerix Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing novel, oral antivirals in areas of high unmet medical need, announced in vitro activity of its investigational antiviral brincidofovir (BCV) against the Ebola virus following testing at the Viral Special Pathogens Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

 

Additional assessments of BCV in animal model studies are being conducted through the CDC and NIH.

 

The company will be attending the World Health Organization’s (WHO) two-day conference on Sept. 4 and 5 in Geneva, Switzerland. This is the second conference to discuss potential therapies and vaccines that may be appropriate for further study in the current Ebola virus outbreak in Western Africa.

 

On Aug. 11, 2014, WHO convened scientific and medical experts and ethicists from the affected countries to consider the potential use of unapproved therapies and vaccines. As no medicines have received regulatory approval for Ebola virus infection, important topics include clinical trial design, ethics, regulatory approaches and data collection.

 

The conference attendees will be considering available data on investigational agents; for brincidofovir, important considerations include the large safety database of over 1000 patients, the ongoing Phase 3 trials in cytomegalovirus and adenovirus, potential risks and benefits, and the immediate availability of tablets which are stable at room temperature and do not require cold storage.

 

Date: September 3, 2014

Source: Chimerix