Portfolio News
Tech Transfer Tidbits: Stanford Spinout Eiger Biopharma Licenses Hep C Drug Targets from School
Biotech Transfer Week
12 August 2009
Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, a recent spinout of Stanford University, said last week that it has licensed the exclusive rights to a hepatitis C virus technology from the university.
The technology, discovered in the laboratory of Stanford researcher and Eiger co-founder Jeffrey Glenn, pertains to a variety of drug targets, including key features of NS4B, a non-structural protein in the HCV genome that binds to HCV-RNA and is required for viral replication.
"Disrupting the interaction between NS4B and HCV-RNA may be a promising new method to treat HCV infection and help combat drug resistance to HCV polymerase and protease inhibitors," David Cory, president and CEO of Eiger, said in a statement.
"We are rapidly advancing novel small-molecule inhibitors of NS4B-RNA binding into the clinic for the benefit of clinicians and HCV patients," Cory added.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
This week, the company also announced the initiation of a phase 1b clinical trial in patients chronically infected with HCV. The trial, run in centers in Australia and New Zealand, will investigate the antiviral effect of clemizole monotherapy in the absence of interferon.
"This proof-of-concept study is an important first step in our comprehensive development strategy for clemizole and newly discovered NS4B-RNA binding inhibitors for the treatment of HCV," Cory said.
Eiger was founded last year based on research conducted by Glenn, an associate professor of medicine, gastroenterology, and hepatology, and director of the Center for Hepatitis and Liver Tissue Engineering at the Stanford School of Medicine.
In February, the company netted a $7.1 million series A financing round co-led by InterWest Partners and Vivo Ventures.
