On 11 Oct, 2016, Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK) and J2H Biotech signed an out-licensing agreement for a first-in-class hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug candidate.
 
In 2013, IPK screened small molecule compounds libraries with the infectious HCV cell culture system to discover novel viral interventions. The project resulted in identifying a Thiophene Urea (TU) compound series. With financial support from the Korea Drug Development Fund, the TU small molecule series was refined further to be an optimized Lead, final optimization was completed in 2015. TU inhibits HCV’s ability to enter into hepatocytes by targeting a viral protein, and it prevents cell-to-cell spread of the virus, thereby inhibiting the major route of HCV transmission in the liver.

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