NanoViricides Nominates Novel Candidate for Advancing Into Clinical Trials for COVID-19 Treatment
NanoViricides Inc. (NYSEAmerican:NNVC) a global leader in the development of highly effective antiviral therapies based on a novel nanomedicines platform, today announced that it has nominated a clinical drug candidate for the treatment of COVID-19, thus further advancing its COVID-19 program closer to human clinical trials.
The Company has accelerated its drug development program for COVID-19 with the goal of creating the most effective medicine to obtain regulatory approval for emergency use in the COVID-19 pandemic in the shortest timeline feasible, after achieving proof of concept of broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus effectiveness of test candidates.
The Company therefore aggressively worked to harness the full power of the nanoviricides® nanomedicine platform to achieve these objectives.
A curative treatment for a virus such as SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus would require a multi-faceted attack that shuts down (i) ability of the virus to infect host cells and simultaneously, (ii) ability of the virus to multiply inside the host cells. The nanoviricide® platform enables direct multi-point attack on the virus that is designed to disable the virus and its ability to infect new cells. At the same time, a nanoviricide is also capable of carrying payload in its “belly” (inside the micelle) that can be chosen to affect the ability of the virus to replicate. The nanoviricide is designed to protect the payload from metabolism in circulation. Thus, the nanoviricide platform provides an important opportunity to develop a curative treatment against SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19 spectrum of pathologies.
The clinical candidate the Company has chosen is identified as NV-CoV-1-R. It is made up of a nanoviricide that we have found to possess broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus activity, now identified as NV-CoV-1, and remdesivir encapsulated inside the core of NV-CoV-1. NV-CoV-1 itself is designed to attack the virus particles themselves, and possibly would also attack infected cells that display the virus antigen S-protein, while sparing normal (uninfected) cells that do not display the S-protein. Additionally, remdesivir is widely understood to attack the replication cycle of the virus inside cells. Thus the combined attack enabled by NV-CoV-1-R on the virus could prove to be a cure for the infection and the disease, provided that the necessary dosage level can be attained without undue adverse effects. Human clinical trials will be required to determine the safety and effectiveness of NV-CoV-1-R.
Remdesivir is a well-known antiviral drug (developed by Gilead) that has been approved for emergency use treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 in several countries. NV-CoV-1 is a novel agent that is being used as an adjuvant to remdesivir in creating NV-CoV-1-R, to improve the overall effectiveness. It is well known that remdesivir suffers from rapid metabolism in circulation that breaks down the prodrug to its nucleoside form which is not readily phosphorylated. The Company anticipates that encapsulation in NV-CoV-1 may protect remdesivir from this rapid metabolism. If this happens, the effective level and stability of remdesivir in the body would increase. This increase may lead to increased effectiveness if there are no adverse effects. Such increased effectiveness, if found, may also allow reduction in the required dosage of remdesivir in the encapsulated form, i.e. as NV-CoV-1-R. In this sense, NV-CoV-1 can be viewed to act as an adjuvant that enhances the effect of remdesivir, a known antiviral against SARS-CoV-2.
“This is an extremely important milestone for the Company,” said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President and Executive Chairman of the Company, adding, “We look forward to rapid development of the IND enabling core safety pharmacology studies and, thereafter, human clinical development on an accelerated timeline in these trying times of the pandemic.”
