Article
作者: Zhou, Qiaoyun ; Yuan, Qiang ; Zhou, Qiong ; He, Shibo ; Sun, Fei ; Hu, Lihong ; Zhang, George ; Wang, Lina ; Chen, Shuhui ; Fan, Lirong ; Sun, Ya ; Zhou, Yixin ; Du, Xiaoting ; Li, Jian ; Wu, Wenqiang ; Qin, Shaohua ; Hu, Yanbin ; Ding, Charles Z ; Mao, John ; Wang, Qian ; Du, Jinhua ; Gu, Zhengxian
Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) remains a significant health challenge worldwide. The current treatments for CHB achieve less than 10% cure rates, majority of the patients are on therapy for life. Therefore, cure of CHB is a high unmet medical need. HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) loss and seroconversion are considered as the key for the cure. RG7834 is a novel, orally bioavailable small molecule reported to reduce HBV antigens. Based on RG7834 chemistry, we designed and discovered a series of dihydrobenzopyridooxazepine (DBP) series of HBV antigen inhibitors. Extensive SAR studies led us to GST-HG131 with excellent reduction of HBV antigens (both HBsAg and HBeAg) in vitro and in vivo. GST-HG131 improved safety in rat toxicology studies over RG7834. The promising inhibitory activity, together with animal safety enhancement, merited GST-HG131 progressed into clinical development in 2020 (NCT04499443).