NanoViricides Has Filed its Quarterly Report - Clinical Trials of Broad-Spectrum COVID Drug About to Begin
- NanoViricides reports a cash and cash equivalent current assets balance of approximately $9.9 Million, sufficient funds to complete initial human clinical trials for NV-CoV-2, and a potential broader spectrum of antiviral effectiveness for drug candidate NV-387.
- None.
SHELTON, CT / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2023 / NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE Amer:NNVC) (the "Company"), reports that it has filed its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal third quarter ending March 31, 2023 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, May 15, 2023. The report can be accessed at the SEC website (https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001379006/000141057823001235/nnvc-20230331x10q.htm).
Financial Status - Sufficient Funds to Conduct Clinical Trials
We reported that, as of March 31, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalent current assets balance of approximately
On March 27, 2023 the Company entered into a License Agreement with Karveer Meditech, Pvt. Ltd., India, (Karveer) wherein the Company granted to Karveer a limited, non-transferable, exclusive license for the use, sale, or offer of sale in India of the Company's two clinical test drug candidates titled as NV-CoV-2 and NV-CoV-2-R for the treatment of COVID in patients in India.
Our lead drug candidate NV-CoV-2 is a broad-spectrum, pan-coronavirus drug for the treatment of COVID. NV-CoV-2 is about to enter into Phase Ia/Ib human clinical trials sponsored by our licensee and collaborator in India, Karveer Meditech, Pvt. Ltd. We await notification of the start of the clinical trials. Two oral formulations, namely (i) NV-CoV-2 Oral Syrup, and (ii) NV-CoV-2 Oral Gummies will be evaluated in the clinical trial. On April 12, 2023, we shipped the clinical drug products to Karveer and the products have been received in good condition.
We estimate that we have sufficient funds to complete initial human clinical trials for our lead drug candidate NV-CoV-2 for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection that causes COVID and also "long COVID".
Broad-Spectrum Antivirals to Meet Unmet Medical Need in COVID and Beyond
Both NV-CoV-2 and NV-CoV-2-R have demonstrated pan-coronavirus, broad-spectrum effectiveness in pre-clinical studies. This broad-spectrum effectiveness indicates that SARS-CoV-2 variants that are continuously generated in the field are quite unlikely to escape either of these two drug candidates, a highly sought after characteristic for an antiviral drug.
In contrast, we note that all of the existing antibodies and cocktails with emergency use approvals, including Evusheld, have lost effectiveness and have lost their emergency use authorizations (EUA) against the current SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants. Paxlovid has limited application as it has been found to be effective only in adults over 65 years of age with co-morbidities, and its composition further limits its usefulness due to side effects and interactions with other drugs commonly taken by persons with co-morbidities. Molnupiravir is a known mutagen and its use is not recommended or severely restricted by international health authorities. Remdesivir is the only FDA approved drug for treating COVID, but it is only approved for hospitalized patients; it requires long, daily infusions, and clinically it has shown only marginal improvements, with reduction in hospital stay of a few days.
We have successfully developed NV-CoV-2 formulations for different severities of the disease, including (i) NV-CoV-2 Oral "Gummies" and (ii) NV-CoV-2 Oral Syrup, to treat mild to moderate disease, and (iii) NV-CoV-2 for Injection, Infusion or Inhalation for hospitalized patients with severe disease including the direct-lung-inhalation for severe lower lung disease, thus covering the entire disease severity spectrum.
Thus NV-CoV-2 is poised to meet the unmet medical need of a highly effective and safe drug to treat COVID, and potentially long COVID with residual virus, that would be useable in all segments of patient populations, from children to otherwise healthy patients to older patients and patients with co-morbidities.
Exploring Additional Applications of NV-387 to Maximize Return on Investments and to Fulfill Unmet Medical Needs
NV-387 has been found to have broad-spectrum activity against all of the tested seasonal coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in pre-clinical studies.
We anticipate that the active pharmaceutical ingredient of NV-CoV-2, namely NV-387, may have significantly broader spectrum of antiviral effectiveness than the coronavirus family alone, based on its design. This because NV-387 was designed to mimic a well-known feature on human cell surfaces, called "sulfated proteoglycans" that a large number of virus families bind to as the first step in infecting a cell (reviewed in (1)).
Antibiotics such as penicillin attack the bacterial surface and thereby kill the bacteria. Similarly, NV-387 is designed to attack the viral surface and destroy the virus particle. Similar to antibiotics that possess a broad-spectrum to treat bacterial infections, NV-387 could be a much needed broad-spectrum, direct acting, antiviral agent to treat multiple different viral infections.
Having a safe and effective broad-spectrum antiviral agent such as NV-387 in hand would help combat future viral infection epidemics before they expand. This strategy should form a backbone of pandemic preparedness strategy, rather than reliance on vaccines and antibodies that have now been proven to be of limited durable utility.
Additionally, once NV-387 based drug formulations such as NV-CoV-2 have undergone Phase I Safety/Tolerability study in humans, next antiviral applications or other indications of NV-387 are likely to be eligible for a much faster clinical pathway, possibly entering directly into Phase II/III clinical trials. This would provide substantial reduction in resource requirements and would significantly improve return on investments.
To this end, we are exploring in pre-clinical studies potential antiviral activity of NV-387 against other viruses, beginning with respiratory viruses. We have initiated studies to treat Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) infection. There is no approved safe and effective drug for treatment of RSV in children, except that ribavirin, a highly toxic drug, is approved for use as a last resort.
The markets addressed by our drug programs are extremely large, into several tens of billions of dollars if not more.
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-CoV-2 for the treatment of COVID-19 disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Our other advanced candidate is NV-HHV-1 for the treatment of Shingles (previously referred to as NV-HHV-101). The Company cannot project an exact date for filing an IND for any of its drugs because of dependence on a number of external collaborators and consultants. The Company is currently focused on advancing NV-CoV-2 into Phase I/II human clinical trials.
NV-CoV-2 is our nanoviricide drug candidate for COVID-19 that does not encapsulate remdesivir. NV-CoV-2-R is our other drug candidate for COVID-19 that is made up of NV-CoV-2 with remdesivir encapsulated within its polymeric micelles. 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 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 and/or enteroviruses 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.
As is customary, the Company must state the risk factor that the path to typical drug development of any pharmaceutical product is extremely lengthy and requires substantial capital. As with any drug development efforts by any company, there can be no assurance at this time that any of the Company's pharmaceutical candidates would show sufficient effectiveness and safety for human clinical development. Further, there can be no assurance at this time that successful results against coronavirus in our lab will lead to successful clinical trials or a successful pharmaceutical product.
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 which 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 preclinical 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.
FDA refers to US Food and Drug Administration. IND application refers to "Investigational New Drug" application. cGMP refers to current Good Manufacturing Practices. CMC refers to "Chemistry, Manufacture, and Controls". CHMP refers to the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, which is the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) committee responsible for human medicines. API stands for "Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient".
(1. Cagno V, Tseligka ED, Jones ST, Tapparel C. Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans and Viral Attachment: True Receptors or Adaptation Bias? Viruses. 2019 Jul 1;11(7):596. doi: 10.3390/v11070596. PMID: 31266258; PMCID: PMC6669472.)
Contact:NanoViricides, Inc.
info@nanoviricides.com
Public Relations Contact:
MJ Clyburn
TraDigital IR
clyburn@tradigitalir.com
SOURCE: NanoViricides, Inc.
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