Arbutus Biopharma Corporation (ABUS)

[Ubertino]

Inserm is considering two trials, each involving at most 15 patients, to test compounds from Fujifilm Holdings Corp. (4901) and Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp. (TKMR), said Jean-Francois Delfraissy, director of Inserm’s Institute of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Discussions with Guinea officials began this week and no decision has been made, he said.

“We are at the stage of starting to talk with authorities, to see whether this can potentially be done, for patients who don’t have too many symptoms yet,” Delfraissy said in a telephone interview today.

Representatives at Tekmira and Fujifilm didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sakoba Keita, head of the epidemic prevention unit at Guinea’s Health Ministry, confirmed that Guinea is in talks with France on the experimental Ebola treatments. “There has been as yet no letter of formalization, but an agreement in principle has been obtained,” Keita said by phone today.

Representatives at Tekmira and Fujifilm didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Aug. 8 that Tekmira’s TKM-Ebola treatment could be given to infected people. U.S. researchers are working to get Fujifilm’s flu drug favipiravir approved for use in humans with Ebola. The medicine is being tested in monkeys, with preliminary data expected in mid-September.

The two mid-stage trials contemplated by Inserm would be designed to show whether the compounds have an “anti-Ebola activity on human beings, which we don’t know yet right now,” Delfraissy said during the interview. They won’t start for at least two months, he said. Another trial, testing a combination of different compounds, could be considered later, he said.

Looks like Tekmira is away to the races!