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It is estimated that 170 million people are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) worldwide. Although the disease can range in severity, approximately 80 % develop a chronic infection that can lead to long-term complications, liver disease, cancer and even death. HCV is a rapidly mutating virus making a traditional vaccine approach difficult.

Bionor Pharma is using its peptide design technology to develop peptides to conserved domains of HCV that are shared between all known genotypes that can form a therapeutic HCV vaccine. HCV therapeutic vaccination aims to complement current HCV treatment to improve efficacy and ultimately lead to eradication of the infection.

As opposed to Hepatitis A and B, there is currently no prophylactic vaccine for Hepatitis C. Current treatment for HCV is pegylated interferon combined with ribavirin which is administered for 24- 48 weeks depending upon the HCV genotype. This treatment is only effective in 50 % of cases of HCV genotype I and 75 % of HCV genotypes II and III and is also associated with frequent adverse side effects. A therapeutic vaccine would serve to overcome many of the shortcomings of current treatment options; limited efficacy for HCV I, adverse side effects, and the long duration of treatment.