COVID Remains A Global Threat – NanoViricides Set To Begin Clinical Trials For Pan-Coronavirus Drug To Help Defeat COVID Once And For All

Effective treatments for COVID-19 remain very few and very limited in their capabilities, even after three years. As a result, there are still high rates of hospitalizations and COVID remains many times more deadly than influenza. A pan-coronavirus drug that is safe enough to be used by anyone and is highly effective remains an unmet medical need. 

NanoViricides Inc. NNVC, a leading biopharmaceutical company developing nanotechnology-based antiviral therapeutics, has been working on a pan-coronavirus antiviral to fulfill this unmet medical need. The company has been a drug discovery company for many years while it has looked to perfect its patented nanoviricide technology, a platform technology that deploys a novel mechanism to combat viruses. With this unique technology, the Company has reported developing a strong R&D pipeline of many antiviral drugs.

NanoViricides is now excited to be transitioning into becoming a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, and with a drug against COVID. The clinical trials of NV-CoV-2, the Company’s pan-coronavirus drug, are now imminent. The drug has already successfully completed the preclinical safety and effectiveness studies, and the Company has already set up cGMP manufacturing for the clinical drug products. 

NanoViricides Drug To Work Against All Current and Future COVID Variants? 

NV-CoV-2 is a broad-spectrum antiviral that looks to treat most human coronaviruses and will maintain its effectiveness as the variants mutate. This may mark a major step in the fight to find a permanent solution to COVID. Developing a drug that works against multiple COVID variants is key because as each variant mutates and spreads it has the risk of further widespread outbreaks causing an endemic or even a future pandemic. 

Despite the rollout of the vaccine from companies including Novavax Inc. NVAX, Moderna Inc. MRNA, AstraZeneca AZN, and Pfizer Inc. PFE, there are still over 170,000 infections weekly, as well as close to 3,000 hospitalizations and 1,800 deaths in the USA alone. COVID is still the biggest viral public health threat today. 

In the ongoing fight against the virus, one major battle is of coping with the multiple coronaviruses and the continuous evolution of their variants. In addition to SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, there are already four known seasonal human coronaviruses, hCoV-229E, hCoV-OC43, hCoV-HKU1, and hCoV-NL63, with NL63 causing the most similar symptoms to SARS-CoV-2. Any of these can lead to a more pathogenic variant in the near future. As these viruses continue to mutate, they render antibodies developed against previous strains ineffective. This means even so-called “hybrid immunity”– natural protection combined with vaccination – often only lasts for around eight months. 

It is important to note that all of the antibody drugs that were given emergency use authorizations (EUAs) have had the EUAs revoked upon becoming ineffective. 

NV-CoV-2 was found to work against many unrelated coronaviruses. So variants of SARS-CoV-2 (that causes COVID) are highly unlikely to be able to escape it. 

NanoViricides Drug NV-CoV-2 Could Cater To The Needs of All Patients 

Antiviral medication is an important way of coping with viral infections, other than vaccines and antibodies, as we all know from HIV. These drugs help the body fight off infection at the cellular level. However, there are significant issues with the antivirals currently on the market for

treating COVID. These include Molnupiravir from Merck & Co. MRK, Paxlovid from Pfizer Inc. PFE and Remdesivir from Gilead Sciences, Inc. GILD, which either have limited effectiveness in treating the disease or carry the risk of serious side effects or both. Of note, they all have significant limitations on which category of patients can be helped. 

Unlike the existing COVID drugs, NanoViricides’ drug NV-CoV-2 caters to the needs of all patients. The Company has developed oral syrup and oral gummies for use in mild to moderate disease (out-patients). It has developed an injectable solution that can be injected, inhaled or infused, for use in severely ill or hospitalized patients. Having these multiple formulations gives the drug a broad range of applications; it would be available to patients with or without comorbidities and patients of all ages from a child to an octa(+)genarian. This unmatched useability is driven by its demonstrated strong safety and effectiveness in preclinical studies. 

The company also has the ability to manufacture clinical quantities of the drug products for clinical trials in its own “current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP)”-compliant facility, enabling time and cost savings. 

NanoViricides At An Inflection Point In Its Lifecycle? 

The company’s clinical trials could be ground-breaking — a novel anti-coronavirus drug, and the possibility for the trials to also prove that the Company’s platform is indeed capable of delivering clinical drugs. There is a whole pipeline of preclinical drugs that the Company intends to advance further. 

The global antiviral market was worth $48.1 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow to $79.8 billion at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7% from 2019 to 2026.

Want to learn more about NanoViricides, Inc.? Visit its website. 

Featured photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash 

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