AVII breakthrough in treatment for Ebola and Hepatitis C

Quite a week for AVII. Stock continued to rise on heavy buying after
hours on Friday:

Scientists have developed a successful strategy for interfering with
Ebola virus infection that protected 75 percent of nonhuman primates
exposed to the lethal disease. This is the first successful antiviral
intervention against filoviruses like Ebola in nonhuman primates. The
findings could by AVI Biopharma serve as the basis for a new approach
to quickly develop virus-specific therapies for known, emerging, and
genetically engineered pathogens.
http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2006/01/13/genespecific_ebola_therapies_protect_nonhuman_primates_from_lethal_disease.html

AVI BioPharma, Inc. (Nasdaq:AVII), today announced favorable safety and
pharmacokinetic results from the first phase of its clinical trial for
chronic active hepatitis C virus (HCV). The multicenter study is
designed to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics (PK) and
viral response to daily subcutaneous administration of its proprietary
NEUGENE(R) antisense compound AVI-4065 among healthy volunteers and
patients with HCV.

"There is a large, unmet medical need for effective HCV treatments, as
the current therapy is successful in less than half of the patients
infected with genotype 1 HCV, the most common form of the virus in the
U.S.," said Denis R. Burger, Ph.D., chief executive officer of AVI. "In
addition, the current treatment regimen with interferon and ribavirin
is expensive, has a plethora of side effects, and is not well-tolerated
by many patients. The favorable safety and PK data reported today
provide further evidence for the large potential therapeutic window for
NEUGENE antisense drugs. This is in sharp contrast to previous
antisense failures by other companies with other antisense chemistries,
which have been primarily due to dose-limiting toxicity."
http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=1140605XSL_NEWSML_TO_NEWSML.xml

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