The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation for the development of TKM-Ebola, an anti-Ebola viral therapeutic.

The FDA's Fast Track is a process designed to facilitate the development and expedite the review of drugs to treat serious conditions and fill an unmet medical need. The purpose is to get important new drugs to the patient earlier. Fast Track addresses a broad range of serious conditions.

"This is an important milestone for Tekmira and our TKM-Ebola programme. Receiving a Fast Track designation from the FDA supports our work to advance the development of this therapeutic as quickly as possible. Our leadership in developing anti-viral therapies has been supported by our collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense, which is funding the development of TKM-Ebola," said Dr. Mark J. Murray, Tekmira's president and CEO.

"In January, we announced that the first subject had been dosed in a phase I clinical trial evaluating the safety of our TKM-Ebola therapeutic, which utilizes a third-generation LNP formulation. We continue to enroll subjects and remain on track to have data from this trial available in the second half of this year," added Dr. Murray.

Tekmira's anti-viral product platform includes RNAi therapeutics addressing chronic hepatitis B infection and lethal haemorrhagic fever viruses, including Ebola and Marburg.

The TKM-Ebola phase I clinical trial is a randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled study involving single ascending doses and multiple ascending doses of TKM-Ebola. The study is assessing the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of administering TKM-Ebola to healthy adult subjects. Four subjects are planned per cohort. There are four planned cohorts for a total of 16 subjects in the single dose arm, and three planned cohorts for a total of 12 subjects in the multiple dose arm of the trial. Each cohort will enrol three subjects who receive TKM-Ebola, and one who will receive a placebo.

TKM-Ebola, an anti-Ebola virus RNAi therapeutic, is being developed under a $140 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense's Medical Countermeasure Systems BioDefense Therapeutics (MCS-BDTX) Joint Product Management Office. Earlier preclinical studies were published in the medical journal The Lancet and demonstrated that when siRNA targeting the Ebola virus and delivered by Tekmira's LNP technology were used to treat previously infected non-human primates, the result was 100 per cent protection from an otherwise lethal dose of Zaire Ebola virus (Geisbert et al., The Lancet, Vol 375, May 29, 2010).

Tekmira's productive collaboration with the MCS-BDTX was modified and expanded in 2013 to include significant advances in LNP formulation technology since the initiation of the program in 2010.

This work is being conducted under contract with the US Department of Defense Joint Project Manager Medical Countermeasure Systems (JPM-MCS). JPM-MCS, a component of the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense, aims to provide U.S. military forces and the nation with safe, effective, and innovative medical solutions to counter chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. JPM-MCS facilitates the advanced development and acquisition of medical countermeasures and systems to enhance our nation's biodefense response capability. For more information, visit www.jpeocbd.osd.mil.

RNAi therapeutics have the potential to treat a broad number of human diseases by "silencing" disease causing genes. The discoverers of RNAi, a gene silencing mechanism used by all cells, were awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. RNAi therapeutics, such as "siRNAs," require delivery technology to be effective systemically. Tekmira believes its LNP technology represents the most widely adopted delivery technology for the systemic delivery of RNAi therapeutics. Tekmira's LNP platform is being utilized in multiple clinical trials by both Tekmira and its partners. Tekmira's LNP technology (formerly referred to as stable nucleic acid-lipid particles or SNALP) encapsulates siRNAs with high efficiency in uniform lipid nanoparticles that are effective in delivering RNAi therapeutics to disease sites in numerous preclinical models. Tekmira's LNP formulations are manufactured by a proprietary method which is robust, scalable and highly reproducible, and LNP-based products have been reviewed by multiple FDA divisions for use in clinical trials. LNP formulations comprise several lipid components that can be adjusted to suit the specific application.

Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation is a biopharmaceutical company focused on advancing novel RNAi therapeutics and providing its leading lipid nanoparticle delivery technology to pharmaceutical partners.