Tekmira Pharmaceuticals said this week that it has received clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration to begin phase I testing of an improved formulation of its RNAi-based Ebola virus drug TKM-Ebola.
The company now expects to begin dosing healthy volunteers in the study early next year.
The company is developing the drug under a contract from the US Department of Defense that could be worth up to $140 million and fund the drug's development through to commercialization. Tekmira had previously tested an earlier version in phase I, but cut that trial short in order to incorporate improvements to its lipid nanoparticle delivery vehicles.