法明顿生物技术公司正朝着乙肝试验迈进

StephenW

Farmington biotech takes step toward hepatitis B trial
PHOTO | Steve Laschever
Bijan Almassian is seen in CaroGen’s UConn incubator lab with research scientist Marie Krady (left) and research associate Lorraine Apuzzo (center), who is pursuing her doctorate at UConn.

Matt Pilon

After several years of refining its immunotherapy platform for curing chronic hepatitis B, Farmington-based CaroGen said it has identified a treatment candidate that it hopes can enter a Phase I trial next year.

"CARG-101" is a "virus-like vesicle" (VLV) biotechnology.

Carogen, which is housed in UConn Health's Technology Incubation Program facility, said it feels confident about its interactions so far with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration regarding CARG-101.

"We anticipate an [Investigational New Drug clearance] and start of phase 1 in the first half of 2019," Bijan Almassian, Carogen's president and CEO, said in a statement.

Almassian has told HBJ that more than 240 million people around the world have chronic hepatitis B and that more than 600,000 die annually from associated liver diseases.

CaroGen, which raised $2.1 million in 2016, also recently announced that it had received a $225,000 research grant from the Small Business Innovation Research Program, to be used to further optimize its VLV technology.

Earlier this month, Yale announced it had received a patent on VLV-based vaccines to treat chronic Hepatitis B. Carogen, which holds an exclusive license to that intellectual property, said the patent increases the value of its biotech portfolio.

StephenW

法明顿生物技术公司正朝着乙肝试验迈进
PHOTO |史蒂夫Laschever
Bijan Almassian在CaroGen的康大孵化器实验室中与研究科学家Marie Krady（左）和研究员Lorraine Apuzzo（中心）一起在康大追求她的博士学位。

马特Pilon

法明顿CaroGen公司在经过数年的治疗慢性乙型肝炎免疫治疗平台后表示，已经确定了一个治疗候选人，希望明年能够进入I期试验。

“CARG-101”是一种“病毒样囊泡”（VLV）生物技术。

位于康涅狄格州康大医疗技术培育计划中的Carogen表示，对于迄今为止与美国食品和药物管理局就CARG-101的相互作用感到自信。

“我们预计[研究性新药清除]和2019年上半年的第一阶段开始，”Carogen的总裁兼首席执行官Bijan Almassian在一份声明中表示。

阿尔马西安告诉HBJ，全世界有超过2.4亿人患有慢性乙型肝炎，每年有超过60万人死于相关的肝病。

CaroGen在2016年筹集了210万美元，最近还宣布它已经从小企业创新研究计划获得了225,000美元的研究经费，用于进一步优化其VLV技术。

本月早些时候，耶鲁宣布已收到VLV疫苗的专利，用于治疗慢性乙型肝炎。Carogen拥有该知识产权的专有许可证，称该专利增加了其生物技术产品组合的价值。