Potential Biowarfare Fighter: FDA Approves Clinical Trial For Chimerix Smallpox Drug

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http://www.localtechwire.com/article.cfm?u=14394

Potential Biowarfare Fighter: FDA Approves Clinical Trial For Chimerix

Smallpox Drug

Special To LTW

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - The Food and Drug Administration has

given RTP-based Chimerix approval to conduct a clinical trial for its

proposed treatment of smallpox and complications resulting from smallpox

vaccine.

Chimerix is a developer of antiviral therapeutics that are delivered

orally.

The company plans to begin a Phase I clinical trial of healthy

volunteers now that the FDA has given its OK to a new drug application for

the drug called CMX001.

" Smallpox is a devastating bioterrorism threat and vaccination is not

an option for more than 40 million Americans with compromised immune

systems, " said Painter, Chimerix president and chief executive

officer. " Using our platform technology, we have developed CMX001, an orally

available drug candidate. We expect CMX001 to have utility not only for the

treatment of smallpox infections in people but also as a treatment for the

adverse side effects associated with smallpox vaccination. "

Smallpox, anthrax and the botulism toxin are considered among the most

feared bioweapons that could be developed by terrorists.

Chimerix is developing CMX001 through a $36.1 million grant from the

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National

Institutes of Health. The grant was awarded in 2003. The company also

received $11 million in venture funding in 2004.

CMX001 has already been used to treat orthopox virus infections - a

viral class that includes smallpox - in animal models, the company said.

Smallpox, once one of the most feared killers of mankind, was

eradicated as a disease in 1979. It was stopped through a global vaccination

program.

Smallpox is transmitted from person to person by infected aerosols and

air droplets spread in face-to-face contact with an infected person after

fever has begun, especially if symptoms include coughing, according to the

World Health Organization's website. The disease can also be transmitted by

contaminated clothes and bedding, though the risk of infection from this

source is much lower, according to the WHO.

Chimerix was launched in 2002. It utilizes proprietary drug

development technology developed at the University of California at San

Diego and the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Diego, CA.

Painter, a former executive with Triangle Pharmaceuticals and Glaxo

Wellcome, was among the early pioneers in efforts to develop drugs to combat

HIV. Triangle developed the drug Coviracil before being acuqired by Gilead

Sciences in 2003.

Randi Airola

517-819-5926

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