We are engaged in the discovery and development of a new class of therapeutics called viral fusion inhibitors.
Viral fusion is a complex process by which viruses attach to and penetrate host cells.
If a virus cannot enter a host cell, it cannot replicate. By inhibiting the fusion process of certain types of viruses, our products under development offer a novel mechanism of action to treat many serious viral diseases. Human immunodeficiency virus - Type I, or HIV, relies on fusion to infect host cells. Currently approved anti-HIV drugs have been used in recent years, in various combinations, to treat HIV infection. Increasingly, these therapies are failing to adequately treat HIV infection because they can cause severe side effects, are difficult to take and often stop suppressing HIV replication because the virus becomes resistant to the drugs.