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Abstract
Despite encouraging progress, antiviral treatment is far from achieving eradication of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Therefore, a large body of new patents concerning novel therapeutic concepts and agents is claimed every year. This review comprises information revealed about granted patents on experimental therapy for HCV infection from 1999 to 2002 but does not intend to be comprehensive. A great part of the inventions described represent peptidomimetic inhibitors of NS3/4–protease, but chemicals, nucleoside analogues or oligodeoxynucleotides are also discussed. The efficacy, specificity and toxicity for most of the claimed drugs are tested mainly in vitro and clinical trial data are rare. Most compounds are intended for combination therapy with well-known antivirals. Other claimed agents, such as recombinant adenoviruses or fusion proteins, are used to improve drug delivery into the cell. A new developing direction of research is the use of immunotherapeutic approaches for HCV therapy.