RIOTECH PHARMACEUTICALS LIMITED

RioTech Pharmaceuticals Limited, is a London UK based biotechnology company very strongly positioned in Hepatitis C (HCV).  RioTech was founded in August 2003 by Professors Howard Thomas, Graham Foster, Adrian Hill and Drs Mark Thursz and Peter Karayiannis at Imperial College London and Oxford Universities in the UK.

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects over 170 million people worldwide of whom 15 million live in target markets. The HCV market is currently worth over $3 billion per year and is expected to rise to over $5 billion by 2007. Current treatment for HCV infection uses a combination of interferon and Ribavirin. These drugs result in viral elimination in just over 50% of patients with poorer results for the dominant (genotype 1) strain of the virus. As therapy is suboptimal and only partially effective, there is a significant unmet clinical need in this lucrative market.