Safety Study of Single Administration Post-exposure Prophylaxis Treatment for Marburg Virus

Marburg hemorrhagic fever is a rare human disease caused by the Marburg virus, a filamentous, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA virus. In general, the mortality rate associated with Marburg virus outbreaks has ranged from 23% to 88%, with the highest death rates seen in more recent epidemics. No vaccine or effective therapy is available for Marburg hemorrhagic fever. AVI-6003 is an experimental combination of 2 phosphorodiamidate morpholino antisense oligomers with positive charges on selected subunits (PMOplus™). These oligomers specifically target viral messenger RNA encoding 2 Marburg virus proteins thought to be important in viral replication and host immune suppression. The present study is designed to characterize the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics of escalating single-administration doses of AVI-6003 in healthy human subjects.

Inclusion criteria

• Male or female and between the ages of 18 and 50 years in good general health
• Volunteers must be willing to use barrier methods of contraception or be of non-childbearing potential
• Volunteers must be willing to undergo a urine screen for drugs of abuse

Exclusion criteria

• Pregnancy or breastfeeding.
• Any clinically relevant abnormalities in physical examinations, vital signs, ECG, clinical chemistry, hematology or urinalysis
• Positive test for human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B or hepatitis C or known history of HIV infection