The research of new drug design for the treatment of hepatitis B virus, by looking at the life cycle of the virus

Worldwide there are about 350 million people with chronic hepatitis B virus (chronic HBV), which can lead to hepatocellular carcinoma and cirrhosis. This can cause 780.000 deaths each year from HBV. Besides, the quality adjusted life year (QALY) is 75.000 dollar per QALY, which is not cost effective. Infected patients can be treated but not cured. One of the methods to obtain high quality drugs is structural biology, which will play an important role in discovering new drugs. Structural biology will provide insight in understanding drug efficacy mechanisms and it allows for structure-guided design to create drug-like properties and antiviral potency. To improve the drugs of hepatitis B, research has been done on the life cycle of the hepatitis B virus. The drug targets discussed in this review, will give insight into new alternative drug targets for HBV treatment. The drug targets have been briefly summarized and the corresponding structures (with protein databank code, PDB) are created, using Pymol (DeLano Scientific). The drug targets are divided into different groups depending on the mode of action of these targets. These are respectively capsid formation inhibitors, capsid formation accelerators, antibodies and the resistance to polymerase inhibitors.