By Ernest Dela Aglanu, Benzinga
With the COVID pandemic still ongoing, having claimed more than 6.8 million lives from about 758 million cases and crippling the global economy, there are several reasons why drug research and development related to the COVID virus remains highly relevant and necessary.
Ongoing drug development by companies such as NanoViricides Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN: NNVC) is vital because new variants of the virus keep emerging and viral infections, hospitalizations and deaths continue at a much greater rate than even pandemic influenza years despite the roll-out of vaccines from players like Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX), Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA), Oxford–AstraZeneca plc (LON: AZN), and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE)–BioNTech
As new virus variants continue to develop, researchers must stay ahead of the curve to identify and combat them. Given the fast-evolving nature of the virus, early detection of these new variants is thought to be crucial in controlling their spread and preventing further outbreaks. However, with significantly reduced testing worldwide, it is now widely understood that a new damaging variant may not be readily identified before it spreads.
Even after 3 years of pandemic, do we have effective drugs that could stop the next variant? Unfortunately, we don’t have even one safe and effective drug that does not come with a lot of limitations. This is why the need to treat current infections and also to better prepare for future pandemics has spurred a new wave of investment and interest in COVID research and development.
NanoViricides has recently reported that it is very close to testing its drug candidate NV-CoV-2 to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection in human clinical trials. Thus the Company is nearing an inflection point in its lifecycle, with the first clinical trials of its unique and novel nanomedicines platform.
Human clinical trials are now becoming imminent — NanoViricides will no longer be a R&D/Drug Discovery company, but will soon become a clinical-stage pharma company. Traders and investors are taking note of what could be a unique opportunity.
NanoViricides, a growing innovator in nanomedicine and antiviral therapies, has been maturing its nanomedicine technology in developing drugs against many viruses for over 15 years, and their most recent developments could potentially prove to be market-disrupting with implications for treating dozens of viruses worldwide.
All these years of research and development are coming together for NanoViricides, now, positioning it to potentially become a major player in the antivirals space.
NanoViricides has reported:
A platform technology that enables it to develop drugs rapidly against many viruses as shown with many candidates in pre-clinical studies against a number of viruses.
Technology to make drugs that variants of the virus cannot escape because no matter how much the virus changes, it uses the same receptor, and this company’s technology for first-in-class drugs is based on making copies of that unique receptor.
A novel mechanism of action, enabling first-in-class drugs against viruses.
Technology to make broad-spectrum antiviral drugs. For example, the company has shown in preclinical studies that its COVID drug works against all the tested coronaviruses.
The ability to manufacture first-in-class drugs at scale to make finished drug products for clinical trials of their lead candidate against COVID in its own cGMP compliant manufacturing facility.
The COVID drug, NV-CoV-2, has been formulated and tested in the form of Oral Gummies, and also as Oral Syrup - to help COVID-positive patients, including children and older patients who need more accessible treatments.
Read the latest report on NanoViricides here.
Dosing And Effectiveness NV-CoV-2 Reportedly Superior
An additional problem for current COVID cases is that available COVID drugs like remdesivir by Gilead (NASDAQ: GILD), molnupiravir by Merck (NYSE: MRK), and to a lesser extent, Paxlovid by Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) face the challenge of limited dosing for safety reasons — which is a part of why they have limited effectiveness and limitations on use — increasing dosage would not give increased benefit thus limiting the drugs’ capability.
Unlike these drugs, the very high safety numbers that NV-CoV-2 has demonstrated in rat studies indicate that patients might be able to take more of the Company’s COVID drug to achieve greater effectiveness when their sickness is more severe. This is expected to be validated in imminent human clinical trials.
Once NanoViricides proves that its COVID drug is safe in clinical trials, the company’s entire platform of nanotechnology would essentially be validated as being capable of developing safe drugs.
Additionally, assuming NanoViricides demonstrates strong effectiveness of the COVID drug in clinical trials, similar to the strong effectiveness they have reported in their pre-clinical studies, that would validate the Company’s pre-clinical approach in studying effectiveness for developing clinical candidates, and will likely have strong positive implications for the other drug candidates in their pipeline too.
As NanoViricides’ reported effective and safe solutions for battling against the COVID pandemic move into the clinic, heralding its official entry as a pharmaceutical drug maker, the story doesn’t stop there. Once the platform is proven, the Company could be well positioned to develop solutions to battle other current and future pandemics as well. The company has drugs nearing clinical stage for treating Shingles and Herpes Viruses (HSV-1 and HSV-2). And it says it will be forging ahead to further develop candidates to battle HIV, Ebola/Marburg, Monkeypox, and other viruses.
With the global antiviral therapy market valued at $48.1 billion in 2018 and estimated to garner $79.8 billion by 2026, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7% from 2019 to 2026, NanoViricides could be strategically placed to participate in such significant market size and growth while potentially revolutionize the industry with the Company’s unique biomimetic technology.
Head to https://profiles.smallcapsdaily.com/nnvc/ to read more about NanoViricides’ technology.
This article originally appeared on Benzinga here.
About NanoViricides
NanoViricides, Inc. (the "Company") (www.nanoviricides.com) is a development stage company that is creating special purpose nanomaterials for antiviral therapy. The Company's novel nanoviricide® class of drug candidates are designed to specifically attack enveloped virus particles and to dismantle them. Our lead drug candidate is NV-HHV-101 with its first indication as dermal topical cream for the treatment of shingles rash. In addition, we are developing a clinical candidate for the treatment of COVID-19 disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The Company cannot project an exact date for filing an IND for this drug because of its dependence on a number of external collaborators and consultants.The Company is now working on tasks for completing an IND application. The Company is currently pursuing two separate drug candidates for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. NV-CoV-2 is our nanoviricide drug candidate that does not encapsulate Remdesivir. NV-CoV-2-R is our other drug candidate that is made up of NV-CoV-2 with Remdesivir encapsulated in it. The Company believes that since Remdesivir is already US FDA approved, our drug candidate encapsulating Remdesivir is likely to be an approvable drug, if safety is comparable. Remdesivir is developed by Gilead. The Company has developed both of its own drug candidates NV-CoV-2 and NV-CoV-2-R independently.The Company intends to re-engage into an IND application to the US FDA for NV-HHV-101 drug candidate for the treatment of shingles once its COVID-19 project moves into clinical trials, based on resources availability. The NV-HHV-101 program was slowed down because of the effects of recent COVID-19 restrictions, and re-prioritization for COVID-19 drug development work.The Company is also developing drugs against a number of viral diseases including oral and genital Herpes, viral diseases of the eye including EKC and herpes keratitis, H1N1 swine flu, H5N1 bird flu, seasonal Influenza, HIV, Hepatitis C, Rabies, Dengue fever, and Ebola virus, among others. NanoViricides' platform technology and programs are based on the TheraCour® nanomedicine technology of TheraCour, which TheraCour licenses from AllExcel. NanoViricides holds a worldwide exclusive perpetual license to this technology for several drugs with specific targeting mechanisms in perpetuity for the treatment of the following human viral diseases: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS), Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), Rabies, Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-1 and HSV-2), Varicella-Zoster Virus (VZV), Influenza and Asian Bird Flu Virus, Dengue viruses, Japanese Encephalitis virus, West Nile Virus, Ebola/Marburg viruses, and certain Coronaviruses. The Company intends to obtain a license for poxviruses if the initial research is successful. The Company's technology is based on broad, exclusive, sub-licensable, field licenses to drugs developed in these areas from TheraCour Pharma, Inc. The Company's business model is based on licensing technology from TheraCour Pharma Inc. for specific application verticals of specific viruses, as established at its foundation in 2005.
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Contact Details
NanoViricides, Inc.
+1 203-937-6137
