Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company, has completed its acquisition of ViroChem Pharma, a privately-held company with two investigational HCV polymerase inhibitors in clinical development.
ViroChem shareholders received $100 million in cash and approximately 10.7 million shares of Vertex common stock. The shares issued in this transaction are expected to be available for resale upon filing of the registration statement.
The acquisition advances Vertex’s strategy to pursue novel combinations of specifically targeted antiviral therapies for hepatitis C (STAT-Cs) in the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Vertex now owns worldwide rights to the ViroChem HCV drug development portfolio, including VCH-222 and VCH-759, which have demonstrated substantial reductions in plasma HCV RNA when dosed as single agents and have been well tolerated in early clinical studies to date.
Vertex expects to begin clinical evaluation of novel combination regimens of its HCV protease inhibitor telaprevir, currently in Phase III clinical development, in the second half of 2009.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is a global biotechnology company focused to the discovery and development of small molecule drugs for serious diseases. Vertex’s product pipeline is focused on viral diseases, cystic fibrosis, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and pain.