Vertex completes acquisiton of ViroChem

Vertex Pharmaceuticals has completed its acquisition of fellow USA-based ViroChem Pharma, a privately-held company with two investigational  hepatitis C virus polymerase inhibitors in clinical development.  ViroChem shareholders received $100.0 million in cash and around 10.7  million shares of Vertex common stock. The shares issued in this  transaction are expected to be available for resale upon filing of the  registration statement.

The acquisition advances Vertex' strategy to pursue novel combinations  of specifically-targeted antiviral therapies for hepatitis C in the  treatment of HCV infection. Vertex now owns worldwide rights to the  ViroChem HCV drug development portfolio, including VCH-222 and VCH-759,  which have demonstrated substantial reductions in plasma HCV RNA when  dosed as single agents and have been well tolerated in early clinical  studies to date. Vertex expects to begin clinical evaluation of novel  combination regimens of its HCV protease inhibitor telaprevir, currently  in Phase III clinical development in the second half of 2009.