Scientists Still Relentlessly Working to Develop Newest, More Advanced Antiviral Therapies for COVID-19 Treatments

Palm Beach, FL – January 27, 2021 – The antivirals market consists of sales of antiviral drugs and related services. Antiviral drugs reduce the replication of viruses at different stages. Various type of viral infections for which antiviral drugs are used include HIV, herpes, hepatitis and influenza viruses and, of course, COVID-19. Millions of people across the globe are affected by the CORONA / COVID-19 virus. The pandemic has put massive pressure on medicine safety stocks. Healthcare providers are using every possible tool to treat COVID-19. It results in tremendous pressure on several medicines especially antiviral drugs. Similarly, the pressure on the system is substantially growing with increased demand from patients and governments for crucial drugs. Scientists and researchers are relentlessly working to develop additional investigational antiviral compounds to treat COVID-19.  According to a new study conducted by Research Dive, the global antiviral therapies market size will reach about $66,016.5 million till 2027, at a CAGR of 3.1%, increasing from $51,913.1 million in 2019. North America has dominated the global market share and is anticipated to account for $19,131.6 million by 2027. Asia-Pacific is expected to rise vastly and is predicted to generate a revenue of $17,718.8 million by 2027.   Active Biotechs in the markets today include:  NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE: NNVC), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE), T2 Biosystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTOO), Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRNE), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA).

 

The Research Dive report said: “In the previous decades, the global antiviral therapies market has experienced a significant growth owing to increasing HIV prevalence as well as rising viral infections in the forecast period. In addition, the COVID-19 emergency period has had a positive impact on the global antiviral therapies market growth in 2020. This growth is majorly owing to rising R&D activities to find suitable antiviral drug for the coronavirus treatment. Furthermore, some of the manufacturers are following various tactics such as new technology introduction to gain a strong position in the global market.  In recent years, the incorporation of nanotechnology into antiviral drugs design and development to manufacture innovative and cost-effective drugs that will treat viral infections has been on a rise. This factor is predicted to generate huge opportunities for the market growth in the coming years. This growth is significantly owing to nanotechnology being one of the mostly capable technologies in the antiviral drugs development because of its capability to handle several viral infections effectively.”

 

NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE American: NNVC) Breaking News:  Broad-Spectrum Direct Antiviral Nanomedicine Should Remain Effective Against COVID-19 Virus Variants, Says NanoViricides, Inc.’s President, Dr. Anil Diwan  NanoViricides, a global leader in the development of highly effective broad-spectrum antiviral therapies based on a novel nanomedicines platform, today discusses the current developments in the COVID-19 pandemic and the Company’s exciting accomplishments related to it.

 

“We welcome the strong engagement of President Biden and his new administration’s commitment to combat this once-in-a-century pandemic with new approaches and fresh ideas,” said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President of the Company.

 

We would like to note that the scientific community at large and regulatory efforts to date have remained focused on (a) vaccines, (b) antibodies, and (c) re-development of pre-existing drugs. Even as alarm bells were raised by renowned scientists regarding the likelihood of escape mutations and the limitations of any vaccines and antibody therapies in combating a rapidly evolving global viral pandemic, there has been an effort to downplay these risks at all levels.

 

This has left the world now grappling with a situation where vaccines are being rolled out even as virus variants that are highly likely to be resistant to current vaccines and antibody drugs have already been found to be spreading rapidly. Current vaccines are now assumed to require constant updates and re-inoculation campaigns to keep up with ongoing changes in the virus. Attention needs to be focused instead on broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutics that minimize the possibility of virus variants escaping the drug, thereby making the costly ongoing development of vaccine updates, their deployment and re-inoculation campaigns unnecessary.

 

NanoViricides believes it is very likely the only company with a platform technology that enables development of drugs that viruses would not escape. In fact, we have successfully screened our COVID-19 drug candidates to be able to protect cells against infection by distinctly different coronaviruses. This broad-spectrum drug development approach was adopted to ensure that our drug candidates should remain effective even as future variants of SARS-CoV-2 evolve in the field, as was already anticipated by us at that time.

 

Additionally, NanoViricides is the only company that, to the best of our knowledge, is developing antiviral treatments designed to (a) directly attack the virus and disable it from infecting human cells, and (b) simultaneously block the reproduction of the virus that has already gone inside a cell. Together, this strategy of a two-pronged attack against the virus, both inside the cell and outside the cell, can be expected to result in a cure for coronaviruses and other viruses that do not become latent.

 

The Company’s nanoviricides® platform technology is based on biomimetic engineering that copies the features of the human cellular receptor of the virus. No matter how much the virus mutates, all virus variants bind to the same receptor in the same fashion. It appears that the later variants of SARS-CoV-2 may have evolved to bind to the human cellular receptor ACE2 more strongly, in general, based on published datasets. Thus, if these features of the cellular receptor are appropriately copied, the resulting nanoviricide drug would remain effective against current and future variants of the virus.

 

Our current drug candidates to combat the COVID-19 pandemic are designed to attack not only SARS-CoV-2 and its current and future variants, but also many other coronaviruses, and will be useful even after the pandemic is over, because several coronaviruses are endemic in human populations.

 

Our COVID-19 drug candidates successfully entered core safety pharmacology studies required prior to any human clinical trials around October/November, 2019. These studies have now been completed and we are anticipating the report from the external CRO shortly. We are now working on preparing a pre-IND application for filing with the US FDA as soon as possible. Additionally, we are actively seeking opportunities to engage appropriate sites for human clinical trials, and we are engaged in the preparation of clinical trial protocols and other activities that would be necessary for filing of an IND with the US FDA.   Read the full press release by going to:  http://www.nanoviricides.com/companynews.html

 

In other biotech news in the markets this week: 

 

T2 Biosystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTOO), a leader in the rapid detection of sepsis-causing pathogens, recently announced that its T2SARS-CoV-2™ Panel—a molecular diagnostic test that detects SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 infections—is capable of detecting the multiple variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus most recently identified in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and the United States.

 

“As new strains of the COVID-19 virus emerge, it is critical that we ensure our technology continues to be an effective diagnostic solution during the ongoing pandemic,” said T2 Biosystems’ President and CEO, John Sperzel. “I’m proud that we can confidently say, after extensive analysis, that our T2SARS-CoV-2 Panel, which has demonstrated clinical sensitivity of 95 percent and specificity of 100 percent, can continue to help impact lives by detecting multiple variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”

 

Both the variants identified in the United Kingdom (B.1.1.7) and South Africa (B.1.351) contain multiple mutations, most reflected in the S gene, which encodes the spike protein. To confirm that the T2SARS-CoV-2 Panel would detect these variants and other potential mutations of SARS-CoV-2 viruses, an in silico analysis was performed using genome sequences available in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) nucleotide database and GISAID database.

 

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech SE (BNTX) earlier this month announced they will supply an additional 100 million doses of COMIRNATY®, the companies’ COVID-19 Vaccine, to the 27 European Union (EU) member states in 2021. This announcement is a result of the European Commission’s decision to exercise its option to purchase an additional 100 million doses under its Advanced Purchase Agreement signed on November 11, 2020. This agreement brings the total number of doses to be delivered to the EU to 300 million.

 

“We remain committed to moving as quickly and safely as possible to bring this vaccine to more people in Europe, as the deadly virus continues to spread at an alarming rate,” said Albert Bourla, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pfizer. “In partnership with the European Commission, member states and healthcare providers, we will be able to reach a total of 150 million Europeans across the continent.”

 

Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRNE) recently announced that it will be presenting preliminary results from an ongoing SARS-CoV-2 mutation surveillance program for its neutralizing antibodies currently in clinical and pre-clinical development for treatment of patients with COVID-19 disease.

 

Dr. Robert Allen, Senior Vice President, Antiviral and Oncolytic Immunotherapy Development at Sorrento and Chief Scientific Officer of SmartPharm Therapeutics, will be presenting data from the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein variant screening program at PepTalk 2021 today and on Thursday of this week.

 

Disclosed data will provide evidence of maintained binding potency by STI-2020 in in vitro assays including the Spike amino acid changes found in SARS-CoV-2 viruses of the B.1.1.7 lineage initially identified in the United Kingdom which has since been detected in ten U.S states. This is highly clinically relevant as it might signify that the STI-2020 antibody currently in clinical trials is not anticipated to behave differently against the new virus variant predicted by the CDC to potentially become the dominant virus variant infecting people in the US as early as March 2021.

 

Moderna (NASDAQ :MRNA) recently found that its COVID-19 vaccine produced neutralizing antibodies against the emerging variants of the virus. In addition, it was found that the current two-dose schedule of the vaccine at a dose of 100 micrograms is expected to be protective against the variants.

 

Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna said, “As we seek to defeat the COVID-19 virus, which has created a worldwide pandemic, we believe it is imperative to be proactive as the virus evolves. We are encouraged by these new data, which reinforce our confidence that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine should be protective against these newly detected variants,” The study showed a “six-fold” reduction in neutralizing antibodies in the South African virus variant.  “Despite this reduction, neutralizing titer levels with B.1.351 remain above levels that are expected to be protective,” Moderna stated.

 

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