Japanese company doing trials of bird flu drug

TOKYO, March 12: Japan's Toyama Chemical Co. Ltd. said on Monday it had begun U.S. trials for a drug to combat bird flu -- one that has a different mechanism from the current class of drugs used to fight the disease.

Toyama Chemical, which is currently in talks with other drug makers about licensing the drug called T-705, said it had started phase I trials -- early trials in healthy humans -- in the United States, in addition to phase I trials recently begun in Japan.

The news sent Toyama Chemical's stock up 6 percent.

The drug maker, small by global standards but regarded by analysts as having a promising drug pipeline, said it hopes T-705 will come to market in the business year beginning in April 2009.

Public health experts are worried the deadly H5N1 avian virus may mutate into a form that can easily be passed between humans, with governments around the world stockpiling Tamiflu, the current frontline treatment made by Swiss drug maker Roche.

They are also keen to see alternatives developed amid concerns that the H5N1 strain could develop resistance to Tamiflu.

If T-705 is successfully developed, it has the potential to garner sales of at least 400 billion yen (.4 billion) every three years, estimated Mitsubishi UFJ Securities analyst Hiroshi Sakakura.

Sakakura said that T-705 needs a synthesis period of only around three months compared to Tamiflu which requires to 12 months, which means Toyama Chemical may be able to undercut Tamiflu's cost of manufacture and provide the drug more widely to developing countries.

Among possible partners for Toyama Chemical, Sakakura says he thinks GlaxoSmithKline will have the edge.

''They are strong in influenza treatments, are developing a bird flu vaccine and have done basic research with Toyama in infectious diseases,'' he said.

The current class of drugs used to treat bird flu are called neuraminidase inhibitors which include Tamiflu, GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza and the drug candidate peramivir being developed by BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Whereas neuraminidase inhibitors slow down viral replication, T-705 is a viral RNA polymerase inhibitor which prevents viral replication.

Since the bird flu virus reemerged in 2003, it has killed over 160 people, according to the World Health Organisation.

Toyama Chemical's stock ended up at 867 yen, 6 percent higher on the day and its highest level in a month.

REUTERS