WHO suggested that more efforts are needed to reduce the global burden of chronic hepatitis B and develop medicines that are safe and effective against hepatitis D and are affordable enough to be deployed on a large scale to those who are most in need.
HEP Pharmaceutical (Chinese: 贺普药业) completed tens of millions of CNY in pre-Series B round financing, which was exclusively invested by Shanghai Zhangjiang Leading VC (Chinese: 上海张科领弋).
HEP Pharmaceutical has accumulated more than CNY 100 million of investment, and the completion of this round marks that the company has entered a new stage of development.
The company focuses on the R&D of viral hepatitis drugs and has the capabilities of drug design, preclinical research, pilot test, clinical trial and mass.
Current hepatitis B drugs only exert an inhibitory effect on hepatitis B virus-infected hepatocytes and cannot protect normal hepatocytes from HBV reinfection.
Hepalatide developed by Hepu Pharmaceutical is an entry inhibitor, which can block HBV infection of primary hepatocytes by binding with a specific receptor NTCP (sodium taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide).
HEP Pharmaceutical and Gilead Science are the only two companies that developed antiviral entry blocker peptide.
At present, HEP pharmaceutical is conducting a phase II clinical trial on the combined treatment with hepalatide and interferon in patients with hepatitis B. And the phase II clinical trial on the treatment of hepatitis D is about to be carried out.