Czech scientists claim US drugmaker shelving powerful new drug

Mar 7, 2007, 17:53 GMT

Prague - The Czech inventors of a new, highly-effective chemical substance that could be developed into a medicine against smallpox, herpes and common colds are distraught that their US partner has decided to shelve it, the Mlada fronta Dnes newspaper reported Wednesday.

According to the Prague-based Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, whose top expert Antonin Holy's viral research resulted in successful HIV and hepatitis drugs which US drugmaker Gilead Sciences markets as Viread and Hepsera, the new substance named MK 612 is much more effective and less toxic than its predecessors.

The new substance was endorsed as extremely effective by laboratories at the Belgian Catholic University in Leuven, the newspaper reported.

Zdenek Havlas, director of the Prague institute, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that he unofficially learnt from well-informed sources some three weeks ago that the company has decided to 'leave the field of herpes viruses for the moment.'

'I got a little nervous already after our news that it looks very good were met with a cold welcome,' Havlas said, referring to a December meeting with the drugmaker's representatives.

The Czech scientific team has already invented a substance against the same types of viruses that Gilead markets as Vistide, a likely cause for the pharmaceutical company's disinterest in the new and better chemical, Havlas said.

'They would push their own substance out of the market replacing it by another one,' Havlas told dpa.

Gilead's Tomas Cihlar told the newspaper that even if the firm decides to shelve the new chemical now it may return to it in the future.