Novel Nanomedicine Platform With Pipeline Of Antivirals Goes To Human Trials – What Other Viruses Could This COVID Treatment Target?

Read the latest report on NanoViricides here.

NanoViricides NNVC has begun trials for its new drug candidate, NV-CoV-2 — an exciting development for the biotech company, as it starts its first human trials with drug sponsor Karveer Meditech Pvt. Ltd. India, the company’s licensee and co-developer in India.

NanoViricides has been building out a novel nanomedicine platform for many years, and this platform now includes a pipeline of multiple preclinical antiviral drugs. The Company is developing antiviral medications that are built on the company’s patented nanoviricide technology. Nanomedicine has a lot of promise, but there are almost no nanomedicines available on the market to treat viral infections. Because of prior acquired expertise, NanoViricides’ first-in-class COVID drug, NV-CoV-2, took just about one year to complete IND-enabling studies, from the discovery stage in January 2020. As a small company with a novel mechanism implemented using out-of-the-box technologies, it took the Company much longer time to actually start clinical trials. Now that it has this regulatory experience, additional drug developments should not take such a long lag time.  

“We believe these clinical trials are an important milestone not only for NanoViricides and Karveer Meditech, India, but also for the advancement of treatments against all viral infections worldwide,” said Dr. Anil Diwan, President and Executive Chairman of NanoViricides.

NanoViricides’ Treatment Of Coronaviruses

The company’s first drug candidate is NV-CoV-2, a broad-spectrum, anti-coronavirus treatment. Other companies have developed treatments for COVID-19, These include Molnupiravir from Merck & Co. MRK, Paxlovid from Pfizer Inc. PFE and Remdesivir from Gilead Sciences, Inc. GILD. However, there are limitations or drawbacks to each of these treatments. 

As a broad-spectrum anti-coronavirus drug, NV-CoV-2 has been shown to work against a variety of unrelated coronaviruses. This suggests that different strains or mutations are unlikely to escape the drug. Several common coronavirus strains include hCoV-229E, hCoV-OC43, hCoV-HKU1, and hCoV-NL63, which recur seasonally. Of these, NL63 and OC43 present with pneumonia similar to the delta COVID variant in susceptible patients, leading to fatalities at rates that are comparable to seasonal influenza. Now, SARS-CoV-2 with its variants is added to this list as a commonly occurring coronavirus. 

A Nanomedicine Platform For Other Viruses

The trials for NV-CoV-2 are part of the company’s development of a novel platform technology employing nanoviricides. The NV-CoV-2 drug contains NV-387, a first-in-class chemical nanomedicine, and its unique mechanism of action (MoA) doesn’t rely on the patient’s immune system to destroy the virus. The Company says that NV-387 mimics an attachment receptor family to which over 90% of known viruses bind, and NanoViricides hopes that NV-387 will likely be a clinically effective drug against at least a few of these viruses. The Company has said that it has begun R&D work to expand the indications of NV-387 to other viruses. 

By bringing NV-CoV-2 to human trial, NanoViricides has demonstrated the platform’s capability to deliver a clinically relevant antiviral. After the Phase 1 studies are completed, the safety and tolerability data will be applicable to any other viruses that the Company targets using NV-CoV-2, assuming it can demonstrate pre-clinical success. Then NV-387 can directly enter Phase 2 as an antiviral against such additional viruses — which would likely mean significant cost and time savings for the additional indications, and substantial improvement in the return on investment (ROI) for the Company with commensurate benefits to the investors. 

The Company is not a “one-trick pony” either. It already has NV-HHV-1, a drug to treat shingles rashes, that has completed pre-clinical studies. The company believes its platform could provide treatments for a host of viruses, including other herpesviruses (cold sores, genital ulcers, and many other serious diseases), as well as influenza and HIV.

This would position NanoViricides at the intersection of multiple growing treatment markets. The herpes treatment market was worth $1.5 billion in 2022 and is predicted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.2% over the next seven years. The influenza market is expected to reach $1.2 billion by 2026, while the HIV market is predicted to reach $36 billion by 2027.  

For now, however, the company is keeping laser-focus on the development of NV-CoV-2 for treating COVID-19 and long COVID. Its current trial will test the drug’s safety and efficacy, and the data will be used to prepare for phase 2 trials.

“NV-CoV-2 is aimed at satisfying the as-yet-unmet medical need of a highly effective broad-spectrum, anti-coronavirus drug that can be used for all patient populations,” said Diwan. “Moreover, it brings into the clinic a novel platform technology of attacking viruses to develop highly effective antiviral drugs.”

Learn more about how NanoViricides is tackling different viruses by visiting its website.

Featured photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels. 

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