August 2015, Volume 8, Issue 4, pp 167-171
Future therapy for hepatitis B virus infection
Masahito Minami
Abstract
We can now control hepatitis B virus infection by continuously administering nucleoside and nucleotide analogues such as entecavir and tenofovir. These drugs are generally safe and sufficiently effective, but future drugs are needed that can show off-treatment efficacy—in other words, eradication of latent hepatitis B virus DNA (covalently closed circular DNA) in the hepatocytes. This article is an overview of new drugs under development and some novel strategies to inhibit hepatitis B virus proliferation.
Keywords
Nucleoside analogue Cyclosporine APOBEC3 RNA interference Peptide vaccine