Eiger appoints new vice president to lead hepatitis D clinical program

Eiger Pharmaceuticals appointed Jeysen Yogaratnam, MRCSEd, PhD, to vice president of the company’s global hepatitis delta virus clinical development program, according to a press release.

“Jeysen’s background and experience in liver disease and antiviral drug development align well with our current and future HDV program needs as we advance lonafarnib in the first-ever phase 3 global study for HDV and peginterferon lambda toward phase 3 for HDV,” David Cory, president and CEO of Eiger, said in the release. “Eiger’s mission is to deliver multiple, first-in-class, treatment options for HDV patients, and Jeysen is ideally suited to take our program to the next level.”

Lonafarnib recently received FDA breakthrough therapy designation for HDV following positive phase 2 data. The ongoing phase 3 study includes 300 patients and 100 controls with a primary endpoint of an HDV RNA decline of 2 log 10 or higher and alanine aminotransferase normalization at the end of 48 weeks.

“I am excited to join Eiger’s leadership team at this pivotal point in the company’s evolution as the leader of HDV drug development and look forward to advancing both lonafarnib and peginterferon lambda to treat HDV patients for this large, unmet medical need,” Yogaratnam said in the release.

Yogaratnam was most recently employed by Janssen Biopharma, where he led drug development of hepatitis B capsid assembly modulators.

Reference: www.eigerbio.com