Just this afternoon Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TKMR)  announced pre-clinical results on its Hepatitis B drug TKM-HBV. We know that a lot of the attention on Tekmira has been because of its Ebola drug TKM-Ebola , but the company is much more than that. For instance, these Hepatitis B results today show great promise for this drug to enter the clinic and help treat patients with the Hepatitis B virus. We are also inclined to say that even though Tekmira has climbed after all this Ebola news, in the end that won't be the driver for the company. Unless the company can get a deal with the government to create a huge stockpile of the drug and be reimbursed for it, the company won't have a need to produce the drug as it would lose money. 

These Hepatitis B results from Tekmira show huge promise for a multitude of reasons. For starters, the clinical trial models were performed with the help of Bristol-Myers (BMY); that meant that Tekmira was able to use more advanced pre-clinical trial models that mimic human results. Secondly Tekmira ran the trial using three RNAi triggers -- three gene targets -- that results in a more potent and broad gene knockdown compared to other RNAi companies that only ran with one trigger. Finally Tekmira impressed the most for the fact that one single dose at only 1 mg/kg was able to achieve a log 1 reduction. What this means is that it was able to achieve a high gene knockdown up to 90% against the Hepatitis B virus. 

With these results we believe that Tekmira is positioned to do well with its Hepatitis B program. The company expects to file an IND for TKM-HBV by the end of 2014. That should get new investors excited about the company besides its TKM-Ebola program. Tekmira expects to start clinical trials for TKM-HBV by early 2015. The company has a long way to go with this program but these early results, along with other validations to date with the LNP -- Lipid Nanoparticle -- delivery system, make Tekmira an excellent long term stock to own in someone's speculative portfolio.