Sweden’s Medivir and South Korean partner Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co have decided to discontinue development of their investigational hepatitis B compound.
Daewoong has been responsible for the R&D work on the treatment, called MIV-210. The partners say that it has “a demonstrably competitive antiviral activity but, like other drugs of this class, does not completely eradicate HBV”.
Medivir noted that “the commercial environment for HBV drugs, with the current standard of care approaching generic status, requires a robust cure profile”. The Stockholm-based company added that “to achieve this cure profile would require combination with other drugs with different and new mechanisms” and given the characteristics MIV-210 could offer, it has been abandoned.
Medivir’s key pipeline asset is simeprevir, a novel protease inhibitor in late Phase III development for hepatitis C that is being developed in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson.
