Bioengineering and semisynthesis of an optimized cyclophilin inhibitor for treatment of chronic viral infection

Hansson, Magnus Joakim; Moss, Steven James; Bobardt, Michael; Chatterji, Udayan; Coates, Nigel; Garcia-Rivera, Jose A; Elmér, Eskil; Kendrew, Steve; Leyssen, Pieter; Neyts, Johan; Nur-E-Alam, Mohammad; Warneck, Tony; Wilkinson, Barrie; Gallay, Philippe; Gregory, Matthew Alan

Inhibition of host-encoded targets, such as the cyclophilins, provides an opportunity to generate potent, high barrier to resistance antivirals for the treatment of a broad range of viral diseases. However, many host-targeted agents are natural products which can be difficult to optimize using synthetic chemistry alone. We describe the orthogonal combination of bioengineering and semisynthetic chemistry to optimize the drug-like properties of sanglifehrin A, a known cyclophilin inhibitor of mixed non-ribosomal peptide/polyketide origin in order to generate the drug candidate NVP018 (formerly BC556). NVP018 is a potent inhibitor of HBV, HCV and HIV-1 replication, shows minimal inhibition of major drug transporters and has a high barrier to generation of both HCV and HIV-1 resistance.