NanoViricides, Inc. Signs CRADA for Material Transfer with USAMRIID for Evaluating Its Anti-Ebola Drug Candidates
October 27 2014 - 7:00AM
Business Wire
NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE MKT:NNVC) (the “Company”), a
nanomedicine company developing anti-viral drugs, announced today
that it has executed a CRADA (Collaborative Research and
Development Agreement for Material Transfer) with the United States
Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).
Certain novel anti-Ebola nanomedicine drug candidates recently
developed by the Company will be evaluated by USAMRIID scientists
in their BSL-4 facilities for activity against the deadly Ebola
virus under this agreement.
“We are very happy to restart our collaboration with USAMRIID
for developing an effective drug against the deadly Ebola virus,”
said Dr. Eugene Seymour, MD, MPH, CEO of NanoViricides, Inc.,
adding, “We intend to ship the samples as soon as the synthesis of
the new drug candidates is completed.”
The current Ebola epidemic that began in West Africa around
December 2013-February 2014, has started producing sporadic cases
elsewhere in the world. All of these cases have originated with
people that have been to the epidemic-affected regions. However,
local transmission has occurred in health care workers in the USA
as well as in Spain. This epidemic continues to expand both
geographically and numerically, exponentially, and containment
efforts have had a very limited impact to date. More than 4,500
deaths have been reported, with a case fatality rate estimated at
about 70%. As important as control measures are to limit the
disease spread, a therapeutic drug is absolutely needed to
effectively contain such a rapidly spreading epidemic.
There are currently no effective drugs or vaccines available for
combating Ebola virus infection. The few cases of successful
treatment with potential drug candidates had also received serum
from survivors.
NanoViricides undertook the extreme challenge of developing a
drug to combat this disease in a “war-like” timeline. We believe
that we can develop an effective drug rapidly compared to other
approaches, because of the inherent strength of our nanoviricides®
platform technology.
The Company has recently developed and is now synthesizing test
quantities of its novel nanoviricide drug candidates against Ebola
that it believes could lead to a successful therapeutic. These drug
candidates are designed to mimic the host cell receptor onto which
the Ebola virus binds to cause an infection. The site at which the
virus binds does not change, in spite of mutations. Thus the
Company believes that its drug candidates would continue to work in
spite of field mutations in the virus. This is unlike vaccines,
antibodies, siRNA, antisense, and several other therapeutic modes,
which a virus can readily overcome due to mutations it acquires in
the field.
“We are using scalable processes so that we can rapidly transfer
synthesis to kg-scale production, which we believe will be
sufficient to contain the spread of the current Ebola epidemic,”
said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President and Chairman of the Company,
adding, “We believe that the collaboration with USAMRIID will
enable timely testing of our candidates in an effort to rapidly
zero in on a final drug candidate against Ebola.”
The current outbreak in Africa has unequivocally demonstrated
the need for an effective, broad-spectrum, anti-Ebola therapeutic.
The Company has previously reported that it has restarted its
anti-Ebola/Marburg drug program, in consideration of the severe
public health impact of an Ebola virus epidemic.
The Company had previously developed anti-Ebola drug candidates
that demonstrated the validity and potential of the Company’s
approach, based on cell culture and animal testing conducted at
(USAMRIID) in a BSL-4 facility. The Company had to de-prioritize
further development of anti-Ebola drug candidates in order to focus
on the development of its lead drug candidate, Injectable FluCide™,
being developed for the treatment of hospitalized patients with
influenza.
About USAMRIID
USAMRIID, located at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is the lead medical
research laboratory for the U.S. Biological Defense Research
Program, and plays a key role in national defense and in infectious
disease research. The Institute’s mission is to conduct basic and
applied research on biological threats resulting in medical
solutions (such as vaccines, drugs and diagnostics) to protect the
warfighter. USAMRIID is a subordinate laboratory of the U.S. Army
Medical Research and Materiel Command.
The Institute is working to develop therapeutics for a number of
agents, such as Ebola virus, plague, several toxins, and
orthopoxviruses.
The information contained in this press release does not
necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government
and no official endorsement should be inferred.
About NanoViricides:
NanoViricides, Inc. (www.nanoviricides.com) is a development stage company that is creating
special purpose nanomaterials for viral therapy. The Company's
novel nanoviricide® class of drug candidates are designed to
specifically attack enveloped virus particles and to dismantle
them. The Company is developing drugs against a number of viral
diseases including H1N1 swine flu, H5N1 bird flu, seasonal
Influenza, HIV, oral and genital Herpes, viral diseases of the eye
including EKC and herpes keratitis, Hepatitis C, Rabies, Dengue
fever, and Ebola virus, among others.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that
reflect the Company's current expectation regarding future events.
Actual events could differ materially and substantially from those
projected herein and depend on a number of factors. Certain
statements in this release, and other written or oral statements
made by NanoViricides, Inc. are “forward-looking statements” within
the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and
Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. You should not
place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they
involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors
that are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control and which
could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of
activity, performance or achievements. The Company assumes no
obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking
statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results
could differ materially from those anticipated in these
forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes
available in the future. Important factors that could cause actual
results to differ materially from the company's expectations
include, but are not limited to, those factors that are disclosed
under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in documents filed
by the company from time to time with the United States Securities
and Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities. Although
it is not possible to predict or identify all such factors, they
may include the following: demonstration and proof of principle in
pre-clinical trials that a nanoviricide is safe and effective;
successful development of our product candidates; our ability to
seek and obtain regulatory approvals, including with respect to the
indications we are seeking; the successful commercialization of our
product candidates; and market acceptance of our products.
NanoViricides, Inc.Anil R. Diwan,
203-937-6137info@nanoviricides.com
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