Glax­o­SmithK­line says it's one step clos­er to a func­tion­al hep B cure — but J&J and oth­er ri­vals are rush­ing there

Glax­o­SmithK­line has show­cased the proof-of-con­cept da­ta that con­vinced it to ex­er­cise the op­tion on Io­n­is’ he­pati­tis B treat­ments and brave the brawl that’s shap­ing up in the space as drug­mak­ers hunt for a “func­tion­al cure” of the vi­ral liv­er dis­ease.

GSK pre­sent­ed the Phase IIa re­sults for GSK’836 (GSK3228836), an an­ti­sense oligonu­cleotide, at the Dig­i­tal In­ter­na­tion­al Liv­er Con­gress or­ga­nized by EASL. As with J&J and Ar­row­head, which al­so tout­ed mid-stage da­ta for their part­nered RNAi ther­a­py, the fo­cus was on re­duc­tions in he­pati­tis B sur­face anti­gen. Al­so known as HB­sAg, it’s con­sid­ered a cru­cial bio­mark­er that in­di­cates an ac­tive in­fec­tion.

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