Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Antiviral drugs

New oral HCV drug shows promise

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 9, pages 432–433 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

A new first-in-class compound for tackling hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, which targets the NS5A protein of HCV, has shown potent antiviral effects in a Phase I trial of patients chronically infected with HCV.

Now, a new orally available potent inhibitor of HCV infection has shown clinical utility in patients who were either treatment-naive or treatment-experienced. This inhibitor, BMS-790052, was identified through a novel cell-based HCV replicon assay and was related to compounds that were previously described by the authors. It was found that these compounds work by inhibiting NS5A, a protein that is involved in HCV RNA replication. Importantly, BMS-790052 showed highly specific activity against all HCV genotypes tested in vitro, with half-maximum effective concentration (EC50) values ranging between 9 pM (for genotype 1b) and 50 pM (for genotype 1a) to 146 pM (for genotype 3a).

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Gao, M. et al. Chemical genetics strategy identifies an HCV NS5A inhibitor with a potent clinical effect. Nature 465, 96–100 (2010)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

FURTHER READING

  1. O'Boyle II, D. R. et al. Development of a cell-based high-throughput specificity screen using a hepatitis C virus–bovine viral diarrhea virus dual replicon assay. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 49, 1346–1353 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Lemm, J. A. et al. Identification of hepatitis C virus NS5A inhibitors. J. Virol. 84, 482–491 (2010)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Man Tsuey Tse
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tsuey Tse, M. New oral HCV drug shows promise. Nat Rev Drug Discov 9, 432–433 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd3189

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd3189

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research