Two acute cas­es of liv­er dis­ease in healthy sub­jects kill Ar­bu­tus' hep B pro­gram

In a sig­nif­i­cant set­back, Vivek Ra­maswamy-backed Ar­bu­tus Bio­phar­ma is ceas­ing the de­vel­op­ment of its ex­per­i­men­tal he­pati­tis B ther­a­py, af­ter two healthy vol­un­teers con­tract­ed se­ri­ous liv­er in­fec­tion in an ear­ly-stage tri­al.

The ther­a­py, AB-506, is an oral he­pati­tis B virus (HBV) cap­sid in­hibitor de­signed to thwart vi­ral re­pro­duc­tion, ver­sus ex­ist­ing stan­dard ther­a­pies — pri­mar­i­ly nu­cle­o­side ana­logues — that are de­signed to di­min­ish vi­ral repli­ca­tion.

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