Vancouver biotechnology company CytoDyn Inc. announced Wednesday a new agreement to boost manufacturing of the HIV treatment it is developing.
The company will work with CMC Biologics, with offices in Bothell, as it researches and tests PRO 140, a self-injectable antibody that aims to reduce the viral load of the blood- and sexually transmitted disease in infected patients.
CMC Biologics said in a statement that its facilities would significantly ramp up production of the treatment as it undergoes more clinical trials.
“As HIV continues to be a significant global health issue today, we are pleased to be working with CytoDyn to help fast-track this promising new therapy to market,” said Gustavo Mahler, president of CMC Biologics.
The medicine from CytoDyn is in the third phase of clinical trials with the Food and Drug Administration. It was recently fast-tracked by the agency, which speeds up the development and review process of drugs that treat serious conditions.
CytoDyn CEO Nader Pourhassan said in a recent interview with The Columbian that the medicine could complete clinical trials and other benchmarks by the end of this year.
“If we can get it ready by the end of 2017 that would be really great, but we could drift to the first quarter of 2018,” he said. If approved it could be available to patients by the end of 2018, he said.
In addition to its Bothell offices, CMC Biologics has locations in Berkley, Calif., and Denmark.
News of the agreement came just hours before Pourhassan spoke in Seattle at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
Pourhassan said recently that test patients of PRO 140 showed significantly lower viral loads — the amount of HIV in a bodily fluid — for up to two years, and showed fewer toxic symptoms seen in current treatments.
“It’s the biggest excitement in the world of HIV today. There is nothing as exciting as this, in my opinion,” Pourhassan said, noting that many industry experts don’t expect a cure for HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, for at least two decades.
“This product is already being used,” he said.
Current medications can cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars per year. If or when PRO 140 goes to market, the company likely would partner with a larger pharmaceutical company.
“We don’t believe that we’ll be selling this product,” he said. “We are going to get the partners.”
Challenges have been apparent. The company was reportedly almost bankrupt when Pourhassan joined it in 2008. Last year, it posted a net loss of $25.7 million, though the company said its brand of research does not generate revenue until it has a finished product.
“We’re talking about $60 million the last three years we have spent on this product,” Pourhassan said. “We are probably going to spend another $50 or $100 million even. But if you can come out and sell even $1 billion, that’s huge.”
