Vertex is completing midstage testing of its drug telaprevir, a hepatitis C protease inhibitor.
He designed early protease inhibitor drugs for AIDS, but the lead molecule failed in trials.
Vertex's stock sank 13% on Oct. 18 when Schering-Plough touted promising results for its rival protease inhibitor.
Schering is in discovery stages for a protease inhibitor that they hope to offer in pill form.
Jenner and Markowitz are watching Schering-Plough's development of a protease inhibitor, as well.
Gilead is also testing a protease inhibitor for hepatitis C, a disease for which there aren't a lot of great treatments.
Once this was done, "it became clear what a remarkable challenge" designing a protease inhibitor would be, says Vertex executive John Thomson.
"This has got the potential to be the best in class protease inhibitor for HIV and AIDS, " says Palmer, the chief scientific officer.
Data from a small, midstage clinical trial with its protease inhibitor, known as vx-950 or telaprevir, were "nothing short of spectacular, " says Markowitz.
It was the first to market a protease inhibitor for AIDS in the U.S., but competing medicines ended up dominating the U.S. market.
Telaprevir is a protease inhibitor that attacks the virus directly and blocks its replication, much the way antiretrovirals revolutionized the treatment of AIDS over a decade ago.
Vertex's stock sank 13% on Oct. 18 when Schering-Plough (nyse: SGP - news - people ) touted promising results for its rival protease inhibitor.
Vertex also is in late-stage tests of a new AIDS drug, a protease inhibitor that requires only two pills a day versus six or more for rival remedies.
Schering-Plough research head Thomas Koestler says his company is "pretty excited" by the trial results so far for its hepatitis C protease inhibitor drug boceprevir and plans to share data with regulators soon to discuss next steps.
The first clear hint of targeted therapy's potential came in late 2003, when researchers at the German firm Boehringer Ingelheim reported that its hepatitis C protease inhibitor lowered the quantity of virus particles by roughly 99.9% in eight patients in two days of treatment, beating what interferon can accomplish in that time period.
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