Canadian drugmaker Tekmira Pharmaceuticals said Friday it will restart a study of an experimental Ebola treatment in the coming weeks.
The company said the Food and Drug Administration will allow it to administer the drug, called TKM-Ebola, to a small number of healthy people once a day for a one-week safety trial. Some patients in the trial will receive TKM-Ebola and the rest will get a placebo injection.
The company said it expects results from the study in the second half of 2015.
Shares of Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp. lost 15 cents to $17.45 in midday trading.
TKM-Ebola is designed to work by blocking genes that help the virus reproduce and spread. Tekmira started giving single doses to healthy people in 2014, but the FDA stopped the study in July because it wanted more information about the safety higher doses.
The agency allowed Tekmira to continue giving the drug to patients who were infected with the Ebola virus.
Tekmira does not have any approved drugs, and it is running early-stage studies of a treatment for the liver-damaging hepatitis B virus.
Explore further: FDA lifts hold on experimental Ebola drug
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Canadian drugmaker Tekmira Pharmaceuticals said Friday it will restart a study of an experimental Ebola treatment in the coming weeks.
The company said the Food and Drug Administration will allow it to administer the drug, called TKM-Ebola, to a small number of healthy people once a day for a one-week safety trial. Some patients in the trial will receive TKM-Ebola and the rest will get a placebo injection.
The company said it expects results from the study in the second half of 2015.
Shares of Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp. lost 15 cents to $17.45 in midday trading.
TKM-Ebola is designed to work by blocking genes that help the virus reproduce and spread. Tekmira started giving single doses to healthy people in 2014, but the FDA stopped the study in July because it wanted more information about the safety higher doses.
The agency allowed Tekmira to continue giving the drug to patients who were infected with the Ebola virus.
Tekmira does not have any approved drugs, and it is running early-stage studies of a treatment for the liver-damaging hepatitis B virus.
Explore further: FDA lifts hold on experimental Ebola drug
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Medical Xpress on facebook
Related Stories
FDA lifts hold on experimental Ebola drug
Federal health authorities have eased safety restrictions on an experimental drug to treat Ebola, a move that could clear the way for its use against an unprecedented outbreak of the deadly virus in West Africa.
New Ebola treatment trial starts in Sierra Leone
A clinical trial of a potential Ebola therapy, led by Oxford University, is underway in Sierra Leone.
Scientists racing to test Ebola vaccines in humans
Scientists are racing to begin the first human safety tests of two experimental Ebola vaccines, but it won't be easy to prove that the shots and other potential treatments in the pipeline really work.
Chimerix gets FDA OK to test drug for Ebola
(AP)—A North Carolina drugmaker plans to test its experimental antiviral drug in patients who have Ebola, after getting authorization from regulators at the Food and Drug Administration.
Ebola drugs: A factfile
There is no licensed vaccine or treatment for Ebola, which has killed more than 8,600 people in West Africa out of more than 21,700 infected since the start of 2014.
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