Achillion Pharma strikes deal to raise $41.8M as hep C results loom

Achillion Pharma strikes deal to raise $41.8M as hep C results loom

August 31, 2012 | By Ryan McBride
Fierce Biotech

Hepatitis C drug developer Achillion Pharmaceuticals ($ACHN) expects to haul in $41.8 million proceeds of a common stock sale to QVT Financial. And the funding comes ahead of some important clinical trial results from the New Haven, CT-based developer's pipeline of hep C treatments...

Achillion has several experimental oral meds in early- or mid-stage trials for hep C, a liver-damaging virus that afflicts an estimated 170 million people around the globe. The biopharma stampede is chasing all-oral regimens for the illness that can spare hep C patients from lengthy treatment on injections of interferon, which causes flu-like symptoms that make patients feel worse than the infectious disease does. And Achillion's contenders offer potential ingredients in cocktail therapies of oral meds to potentially wipe out the virus without those side effects from interferon....

Early next year Achillion is expected to report early data from an upcoming trial that tests a combo of the company's HCV NS3 protease inhibitor sovaprevir and a compound known as ACH-3102 as an interferon-free therapy for hep C, according a recent investor note from Cowen & Company...

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