By Karen Pihl-Carey

ViroPharma Inc. entered into a development and marketing alliance with Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories to advance its small-molecule antiviral drug candidates for hepatitis C virus (HCV).

The alliance, which includes a $5 million up-front payment to ViroPharma, as well as milestones, royalties and research and development support, also will focus on discovering additional novel inhibitors of HCV. It joins ViroPharma¿s advanced preclinical HCV product candidates and antiviral drug discovery technologies with Wyeth-Ayerst¿s strengths in anti-infectives research, development, manufacturing and marketing.

¿This partnership allows us to leverage Wyeth-Ayerst technology and combine it with our HCV product candidates so we can advance this program expeditiously,¿ said Kori Beer, director of corporate communications at Exton, Pa.-based ViroPharma.

ViroPharma¿s VP50406 is the company¿s most advanced product for HCV. The company expects to move the product into clinical trials in the first quarter of 2000.

Under terms of the alliance, ViroPharma and Radnor, Pa.-based Wyeth-Ayerst, a division of American Home Products Corp., of Madison, N.J., will co-promote HCV products in the U.S. and Canada, sharing equally in profits. In other countries, Wyeth-Ayerst will promote the products and give ViroPharma ¿double-digit royalties¿ on sales, Beer told BioWorld Today.

Wyeth-Ayerst also will cover a portion of research and development expenses, as well as gain the option to purchase ViroPharma common stock at a premium.

¿When certain milestones are achieved, they¿ll have the option to purchase a limited amount of ViroPharma stock, and that¿s going to be based on current market value,¿ said Beer, who stressed it is a ¿minimal amount of stock¿ that will not give Wyeth-Ayerst a significant percentage of the company.

HCV affects more than 170 million people worldwide and at least 4 million Americans. It is a major cause of acute and chronic liver disease, accounting for about 40 percent of all deaths due to liver failure, or about 10,000 deaths each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Aside from advancing its HCV product, ViroPharma plans to file a new drug application (NDA) for pleconaril for viral meningitis in the first half of 2000. The company will announce results from two trials in the first quarter, Beer said. The company expects to file an NDA for pleconaril in viral respiratory infection toward the end of 2000. A Phase III trial for that indication is under way.

The company raised $57 million in October through a public offering of 3 million shares at $19 per share. The money is to be used to launch pleconaril should it gain FDA approval. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 23, 1999, p. 1.)

ViroPharma also intends to advance into the clinic VP14637 toward the end of the first half of 2000. It is being developed to treat diseases caused by respiratory syncytial virus.

ViroPharma¿s stock (NASDAQ:VPHM) closed Monday at $28.312, up $1.187.