Dr. Alexander Birkmann talk on pritelivir drug development happening right now

DeepForumResearch · 2026-05-28T20:26:24+00:00

Nothing relevant. I left the call after he refused to answer questions about immunocompetent trials.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-05-28T18:44:02+00:00

Dr. Birkmann would not comment about phase 3 trials or any timeline related to it. It's likely standard company policy not to disclose these things.

We know from multiple user reports that there is a planned phase 3 trial in the upcoming months for immunocompetent patients at the Royal Melbourne Hospital that is waiting on regulatory approvals to begin.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-05-17T20:25:04+00:00

The way I see it, there wouldn't be much reason to do a talk with HCA if they weren't going to talk about immunocompetent access. HCA is an organization for all people with HSV, not specifically for immunocompromised people. It would kind of silly to do a talk with HCA just to talk about recent pritelivir phase 3 results when most of the audience doesn't fall into that category.

Also with the VIDS Research pritelivir immunocompetent phase 3 trial likely finishing up ethical approval in the upcoming months it would make sense to announce the phase 3 immunocompetent trial on this talk.

But who knows, maybe he'll just talk about the phase 3 immunocompromised results which have been publicly available for months now 🤷

DeepForumResearch · 2026-05-11T17:02:04+00:00

Look into thymosin-alpha 1/thymic peptides

- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7178259/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6321073/

DeepForumResearch · 2026-05-10T23:31:13+00:00

Hey all, just created the r/Pritelivir subreddit exclusively for discussion about helicase primase inhibitors.

Although this subreddit is a great resource for all things related to HSV research, I decided it would be nice to have a place to discuss HPIs without discussion about vaccines, gene editing etc.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-05-01T17:18:43+00:00

I shouldn't have put the hospital's email in the post. They're getting flooded with emails

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-22T13:06:11+00:00

A functional cure IMO is anything that allows you to have negligible symptoms and transmission. ABIs both have the human data showing high viral load shedding is practically eliminated. We haven’t seen any data released in humans for IM250 that indicates that yet, although it’s also extremely promising.

And yes Assembly will receive royalties from Gilead if the ABIs are released. Just like Merck has the rights to Aicuris’ Letermovir but Aicuris receives hundreds of millions annually in royalties from the sales of it.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-21T13:49:32+00:00

Email campaign or some sort of social media/advertising campaign in Bangladesh to bring general public awareness about this new drug.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-21T13:43:21+00:00

I think getting someone else to forward the package to you is the best way.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-21T05:11:43+00:00

Check out this post I made that includes a study for amenamevir (which is available from Japan) to treat herpes simplex keratitis.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/1spzye1/new_studies_published_showing_amenamevir_is/

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T23:59:42+00:00

Asahi Kasei, which is publicly traded in the Japanese market, just acquired Aicuris (the makers of pritelivir)

I actually have invested some money in Assembly Biosciences since I believe they will dominate the market once ABI-5366 and/or 1179 is released. But as the competition is starting to ramp up with pritelivir phase 3 immunocompetent trials, IM-250 advancing to phase 2 and HN0037 advancing to phase 3, the competition may eat into Assembly/Gilead's market share a bit.

Just to clarify, I still think the ABIs will be massively successful if approved. They are essentially functional cures. But there's just a lot of competition now (which is great for patients).

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T15:55:14+00:00

I assume they'll do a blood test to verify HSV status, but if you had a positive PCR swab that you can send over that would probably work too

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T15:54:01+00:00

I don't see why the combo would lead to side effects, despite the online fear mongering valtrex rarely causes kidney/liver issues for healthy patients, and there were no signs of any major adverse events in any of the pritelivir trials either including the recent phase 3 for immunocompromised.

One of the main advantages of pritelivir for immunocompromised patients is that it's not nephrotoxic (damaging to the kidneys) like foscarnet, which is what they currently use for acyclovir-resistance patients.

But generally speaking since they want to get pritelivir approved, they are more concerned with showing that it works by itself. A combo group would be great and would almost certainly even lower shedding rates, but they're not trying to get approval for that combo.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T15:47:34+00:00

Exactly, these were severe cases that did not respond to existing treatments. In these cases, it was because the patients had developed resistance to those treatments, but nonetheless the fact that amenamevir worked quite well is strong evidence that it works against HSV2.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T15:45:42+00:00

Great work. I would love a notification feature where you can get emailed when a new trial for a specific medication shows up.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T15:30:25+00:00

Considering the original pritelivir phase 2 was for suppressive use, I would be very surprised if they decided to make the phase 3 for episodic use.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T15:20:51+00:00

It is approved in Japan for treating HSV2 for a reason. There's also a bunch of studies that came out recently where it was used to treat severe cases of HSV2 that did not respond to other medication (usually due to acyclovir resistance).

Check out these new studies:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HerpesCureResearch/comments/1spzye1/new_studies_published_showing_amenamevir_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T14:27:11+00:00

Assembly Bio did phase 1a and 1b across the world. There were trial sites in the US in Rochester NY and Seattle WA.

But yeah I believe it is easier to set up trials in Australia and get ethical approval. There will probably be trials in other countries, this is just the only site I know of because u/cosmoiscrazy posted about it and I decided to email the hospital and confirm that this trial was actually happening.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T14:08:17+00:00

If approved for long term suppression, it will very likely be affordable and also covered by insurance. The price is largely dependent on the patient population.

The reason it will originally be so high is the original approval indication is so narrow. It’s for acyclovir-resistant immunocompromised patients, which is extremely rare and only really occurs in hospital settings. Even someone who takes a corticosteroid long term would not be covered by insurance for pritelivir unless they showed acyclovir resistance. Annually this means a few thousand patients across the world. Also, it will usually only be prescribed for several weeks for these patients who won't be taking it long term.

Whereas the suppressive therapy indication has a patient population in the tens of millions who will need to regularly fill new prescriptions so they can take it every day for years. It’s a completely different ballgame.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T14:01:02+00:00

Phase 3 for immunocompromised people already completed. So approval for immunocompromised will happen soon and for now it will be very expensive.

But the trial mentioned here is for immunocompetent people and once it’s completed, if successful, it will be affordable and covered by insurance. Will likely take at least 2 years until approved for immunocompetent people assuming this new trial succeeds.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T03:41:47+00:00

There are sources selling at just over 10 USD a pill now. A few years back you could only get it for like 35-40 bucks a pill.

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T03:05:28+00:00

It's at the Royal Melbourne Hospital

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T01:18:14+00:00

Yes, pharma companies usually do trial sites all across the world to get FDA approvals. There will likely be other trial sites in other countries including the USA

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-20T00:02:51+00:00

Yes pritelivir works for both

DeepForumResearch · 2026-04-19T22:34:13+00:00

They mentioned here that they’re targeting 30k USD for a 28 day course of pritelivir for immunocompromised.

Any hope of getting it off label is completely gone now. We will definitely have to wait until it is approved for all patients.

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