GlobeImmune's GI-5005, the company's investigational Tarmogen product, improved sustained virologic response by 12 percent in patients with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C virus infection who had failed prior treatment with standard of care, according to data from a Phase IIb study. The data suggest GI-5005 may have the potential to be the first successful therapeutic vaccine for patients chronically infected with HCV.
"Only four to seven percent of patients with genotype 1 HCV who were null, poor or partial responders to their first course of pegylated interferon-based therapy would be expected to achieve a sustained virologic response with a second course of treatment," says Paul Pockros of the Scripps Clinic. "In this study, GI-5005 conferred a three-fold improvement in SVR, an important treatment effect in this challenging patient population."
The 2008 Fierce 15 winner received $40 million in May 2009 as part of a new partnership with Celgene, the Boulder County Business Report notes. The two companies said they would work jointly on multiple products to treat cancer. The company has about 40 employees. In January, GlobeImmune said it had closed on a round of financing for $18 million. However, over the summer, the company laid of 15 of its 60 employees--or 25 percent. "Basically we were adjusting the organization for what we are working on," CEO Timothy Rodell tells the Daily Camera. "It was a force of business."
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