Stephan Urban receives the Baruch S. Blumberg Prize 2023
Stephan Urban, DZIF professor at Heidelberg University Hospital, receives the Baruch S. Blumberg Prize 2023 from the Hepatitis B Foundation, a global non-profit organisation. The virologist is being honoured for the development of bulevirtide, the first medication for the treatment of hepatitis D. The drug was approved by the European Commission under the tradename Hepcludex in mid-2020 and acquired by US industry giant Gilead Sciences at the end of 2020.
"The hepatitis B and D communities owe Stephan Urban a great debt of gratitude," Hepatitis B Foundation President Chari A. Cohen emphasised. With his innovative research, Urban has helped to understand key components of hepatitis B and D virology and thus pioneered the development of new therapeutics, she added.
With bulevirtide, Prof. Urban has developed a novel entry inhibitor of the virus that for the first time can effectively protect patients with hepatitis D from the progression of liver disease. Hepatitis D occurs as a co-infection with hepatitis B. More than 12 million people worldwide are affected by chronic hepatitis D disease, which can subsequently lead to liver cirrhosis or even liver cancer. There was no approved treatment of hepatitis D available before bulevirtide.
Stephan Urban completed his Diploma in Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen in 1991 and was awarded a doctorate in 1995 at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich. Urban continued his research at the Centre for Molecular Biology at the University of Heidelberg with Prof. Heinz Schaller and later became an independent group leader in the department of molecular virology headed by Prof. Ralf Bartenschlager at Heidelberg University Hospital. Bulevirtide’s success story began nearly 30 years ago when the virologist discovered how hepatitis B virus particles enter liver cells. Urban and his Heidelberg team then persistently developed the highly potent active substance bulevirtide—in the last decade with the support of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), which in 2014 conferred Prof. Stephan Urban a professorship in "Translational Virology".
This long-term development from an idea for a drug all the way to actual treatment of people is now being recognised with the Baruch S. Blumberg Prize, the highest award conferred by the Hepatitis B Foundation. The prize will be presented to Stephan Urban on March 10 2023 at the Hepatitis B Foundation Gala in Philadelphia, USA.
