October 8, 2014
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
An experimental drug being used to treat patients with the Ebola virus had now conclusively shown promise in treating patients with adenovirus, the company that makes brincidofovir, Chimerix , said Wednesday.
North Carolina-based Chimerix has grabbed headlines lately after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has allowed it to treat Ebola patients with brincidofovir under experimental conditions
Chimerix said the latest data was spurred on by the successful treatment earlier this year of 7-year-old Josh Hardy, who had been battling an adenovirus infection after a bone marrow transplant at St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis. Hardy, who was at the time fighting cancer he’d had since he was an infant, was approved by the FDA for a “compassionate use” exemption allowing him to be treated experimentally with brincidofovir.
Brincidofovir, or CMX001, is a broad-spectrum antiviral drug adults who have compromised immune systems or cytomegalovirus infections acquired after hematopoietic stem cells transplants for cancer.
The company said in a recent study, preliminary survival analysis data, based on 48 evaluable patients from the ongoing AdVise Trial, showed a mortality rate of 35 percent compared with the historic rates of up to 80 percent mortality in the first month after diagnosis. A majority of subjects also had suppression or clearance of adenovirus from the blood. There is currently no approved treatment for adenovirus, an infection that can progress rapidly in patients with a weakened immune system due to disease or medications.
“When progressive adenovirus infection occurs in immunocompromised patients, they deteriorate, and the infection can be fatal in up to four of every five cases,” said Jo-Anne Young, professor of medicine and medical director of the Program in Transplant Infectious Disease at the University of Minnesota, in a statement.
“In these very sick patients who were treated with brincidofovir, nearly two-thirds of the patients survived the first few weeks when we have historically seen the highest mortality,” she said. “These results are encouraging and warrant the continued evaluation of brincidofovir as a promising antiviral for this life-threatening infection, for which a treatment is desperately needed.”
Chimerix said the latest data will be presented at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) on Oct. 11 in Philadelphia.
