Pharmasset Nominates PSI-938 As Development Candidate For HCV

Pharmasset has nominated PSI-352938 (PSI-938) as a lead development candidate from two series of purine analogs, for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

PSI-938 is a proprietary nucleotide analog polymerase inhibitor of HCV. It is being advanced into studies required for submission of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the FDA or equivalent foreign regulatory application.

Michael Otto, Chief Scientific Officer of Pharmasset, said: PSI-938 is particularly interesting to us since it differs from our pyrimidine analogs, R7128 and PSI-7851, because it has a complementary resistance profile and is metabolized through a different phosphorylation pathway. These differences may prove to be particularly important as we explore combinations of nucleos(t)ides in clinical development in the future.