Drug Discovery and Development

  • Home Drug Discovery and Development
  • Drug Discovery
  • Women in Pharma and Biotech
  • Oncology
  • Neurological Disease
  • Infectious Disease
  • Resources
    • Video features
    • Podcast
    • Voices
    • Webinars
  • Pharma 50
    • 2025 Pharma 50
    • 2024 Pharma 50
    • 2023 Pharma 50
    • 2022 Pharma 50
    • 2021 Pharma 50
  • Advertise
  • SUBSCRIBE

Scientists Gain NIH Grant to Further Work Toward Hepatitis B Cure

By Saint Louis University | February 8, 2017

With a $416,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), SLU scientists will continue work to cure hepatitis B, building on significant findings published in two recent papers.

John Tavis, Ph.D., professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Saint Louis University, aims to advance our understanding of how the hepatitis B drug replicates in order to develop a new drug that, in combination with other medications, could cure the viral infection.

With the new NIH funding, he will partner with co-principle investigator Marvin Meyers, Ph.D., director of medicinal chemistry for SLU’s Center for World Health and Medicine. Meyers oversees the synthesis and design of promising new drug leads and their optimization into clinically effective drug molecules.

Experts estimate that up to 350 million people are chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus. Of those infected, about 1 million worldwide die from liver failure and liver cancer each year.

A person who is infected with hepatitis B virus can have billions of viruses per drop of blood. To cure a patient, a drug needs to reduce those levels to zero. Current drugs approved to treat the virus can reduce its numbers, make symptoms disappear for years and push it to the brink of extinction. But for most people, the medications can’t kill the virus completely. As long as any virus remains, it can multiply if medications are stopped.

Because of this, hepatitis B treatment usually spans decades, with costs of $400 to $600 a month, if patients can afford the medication. Expensive and beyond the means of many, patients often do not receive any treatment at all. As a compromise measure, some patients opt to take medication for a short time, staving off for a few years the damage the illness will cause.

The hepatitis B virus replicates by reverse transcription, a process in which viral DNA is converted to RNA and then back to DNA by two vital viral enzymes. Most current drugs work by inhibiting the first of these enzymes. Tavis has focused his efforts on inhibiting the second: ribonuclease H (RNaseH).

Tavis’s team recently published two papers that made significant advances toward this aim: One, published in Antiviral Research, reports the first complete biochemical analysis of the RNaseH enzyme and is key to efforts to screen for a new drug. The second, published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, reports that RNaseH inhibitors work synergistically with the main class of anti-hepatitis B drugs and with each other, as well as additively with a different class of experimental drugs. This means that combining RNaseH inhibitors with existing drugs actually improves how well each drug works.

Together, these papers strengthen the case that RNaseH inhibitors show promise as drug candidates, and that these inhibitors may work in combination with existing drugs.

Tavis notes that U.S. government funding has been key to these advances.

“This research is a result of 25 years of background studies in basic science funded by the NIH,” Tavis said.

With the new grant, Tavis, Meyers and their teams hope to move the science another step closer to a cure.


Filed Under: Drug Discovery

 

Related Articles Read More >

Zoliflodacin wins FDA nod for treatment of gonorrhea
FDA approved ENFLONSIA for the prevention of RSV in Infants
First clinical study results of Dupixent for atopic dermatitis in patients with darker skin tones 
Labcorp widens precision oncology toolkit, aims to speed drug-trial enrollment
“ddd
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest news and trends happening now in the drug discovery and development industry.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
Drug Discovery and Development
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • Medtech100 Index
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Medical Design & Outsourcing
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Subscribe to our E-Newsletter
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • R&D World
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World

Copyright © 2025 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search Drug Discovery & Development

  • Home Drug Discovery and Development
  • Drug Discovery
  • Women in Pharma and Biotech
  • Oncology
  • Neurological Disease
  • Infectious Disease
  • Resources
    • Video features
    • Podcast
    • Voices
    • Webinars
  • Pharma 50
    • 2025 Pharma 50
    • 2024 Pharma 50
    • 2023 Pharma 50
    • 2022 Pharma 50
    • 2021 Pharma 50
  • Advertise
  • SUBSCRIBE