Qualigen Therapeutics Plans to Combat COVID-19 Variants

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

Qualigen Therapeutics Inc QLGN was one of the sponsors for the Benzinga Biotech Global Small Cap Conference that took place on March 24-25, 2021. The information contained in this article in no way represents investment advice or opinion on the part of Benzinga or its writers and is intended for informational purposes only.

Vaccine development to this point has been extraordinary and the initial COVID-19 vaccines have turned out to be highly effective amid the global pandemic. 

As evidence of new variants of the virus increases, the durability and extent of protection provided from vaccines for new variants are uncertain.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been clear that since these vaccines elicit a broad immune response involving a range of antibodies and cells, mutations in the virus should not make vaccines completely ineffective. 

The WHO suggests that manufacturers and the programs using the vaccines may have to adjust to the evolution of the virus by incorporating more than one strain when in development or may need other changes. 

Furthermore, there have been reported cases of adverse events and safety in some cases that may affect certain population segments. Along with vaccines, there is also a great need to treat symptomatic patients with COVID-19.

For this reason, the widespread belief is that the coronavirus will be here for a while.

California-based biotechnology company Qualigen believes its unique approach to creating a therapeutic drug may be an effective treatment against COVID-19 and its variants.

Qualigen’s Potential Solution

Qualigen’s lead candidate QN-165 (formerly referred to as AS1411) is a potentially broad antiviral drug candidate that aims to commence Phase 1b/Phase 2 clinical trials this year for COVID-19.

What’s unique about this drug candidate is that it has a completely different approach to attacking a virus. QN-165 is a piece of synthetic DNA that targets and binds to the nucleolin protein and can go into cells that express too much nucleolin. 

QN-165 does not attack the coronavirus directly. It targets a protein called nucleolin, which viruses use to get access to a cell for that cell to replicate. 

Nucleolin is present in all cells in the body. COVID-19 uses the nucleolin protein to gain access to cells so that they can turn cells into what essentially become factories to produce more viruses. 

QN-165, by tying up nucleolin, blocks that mechanism and prevents the virus replication process. Thus when the virus mutates, it doesn’t affect the ability of the drug to treat it because QN-165 targets nucleolin instead of the virus itself. This makes Qualigen’s mechanism of action immune to viral mutations.

History of Success

Qualigen has a proven track record in the medical diagnostics space — being able to develop, get approval, commercialize and generate revenue. 

The FastPack® line of FDA-cleared and CE-marked products have been used successfully in diagnostics since 2002. It is estimated that thousands of lives have been saved by Qualigen’s diagnostics, particularly the PSA test for prostate cancer in men.

The long-standing vision of the company is to bring its novel science beyond diagnosing cancer and other diseases, toward differentiated therapeutics. Much of the company’s therapeutics pipeline programs have come through collaborations with major academic institutions such as the University of Louisville.

Therapeutics Pipeline 

Qualigen has a pipeline of proprietary drug candidates. Apart from QN-165, the lead drug candidate for COVID-19 and potentially other antiviral indications, the company is also developing QN-247, RAS-F and STARS programs.

QN-247, formerly referred to as ALAN, is a drug candidate that will be initially developed for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), then possibly expanding to cancers of the brain, kidney and liver, with a platform of applications for imaging, diagnostics and drug delivery.

RAS-F is a small molecule drug candidate that targets the downstream effects of RAS mutations (including KRAS). It affects a variety of cancers, including pancreatic, lung and colorectal cancers. The initial indication planned for RAS-F is pancreatic cancer.

STARS is a DNA/RNA-based treatment device candidate to remove circulating blood of precisely targeted, tumor-produced viral compounds.

Qualigen Overview

• Products and Pipeline: Includes novel platform technologies to treat multiple cancer types and viral diseases
• Resources: $24 million in cash (as of December 31, 2020)  providing runway well into 2022 to hit significant value-driving inflection points starting this year 
• Team: Experienced and growing leadership team with a proven track record in development and commercialization 
• Partnerships: Leveraging prominent investigators at major research institutions to cost-efficiently advance development
• Value: Extensive global IP portfolio (over 100 owned or in-licensed, issued or pending patents and applications) 

To learn more about Qualigen, visit its website here.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.