influenza A subtype H3N2 infection

A First-In-Class, Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Agent Intending To Revolutionize Treatment of Viral Infections Including RSV, COVID, Influenzas and More SHELTON, CT / ACCESSWIRE / June 4, 2024 / NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE Amer.:NNVC) (the "Company"), a clinical-stage global leader in broad-spectrum antiviral nanomedicines, reports on the highly desirable blood concentration pro its lead clinical stage broad-spectrum antiviral agent NV-387 upon intravenous (I.V.) administration in a non-human primate (NHP) animal model. The Company has found that its lead nanoviricide broad-spectrum antiviral drug candidate NV-387, when given as a slow bolus intravenous infusion, resulted in a relatively flat plateau of blood concentration of the drug with very slow decline over a 24 hour period in a cynomolgus monkey model. The maximum concentration as well as the plateau concentration increased in a dose-dependent manner, as expected. This sustained drug level in the blood stream for a relatively long period of time enables infrequent dosing. It is the result of the unique polymeric design of NV-387. NV-387 is a "chemical nanomachine". It is made up of polymer with its size chosen to minimize loss by renal filtration. The observed pharmacokinetic pro NV-387 supports a once-daily or less frequent dosing regimen. The Company has already developed an injectable formulation of NV-387, namely NV-387 Solution for Injection, Infusion, and Inhalation. An injection of NV-387 would be useful for moderate to severe illness, especially because of the sustained blood pro requires infrequent dosing. An infusion would be suitable for severely ill hospitalized patients. Importantly, this NV-387 Solution can be readily delivered directly into the lungs of a patient using a simple handheld nebulizer over a period of a few minutes. Such delivery can enable direct attack on the virus where such attack is most needed in the cases of severe lung infection. The utility of NV-387 is extremely broad, reminiscent of the utility of antibiotics. We have found that NV-387 could cure lethal lung infection in RSV infected animals even with an oral dose. There is no approved drug for RSV treatment other than the toxic, last resort drug ribavirin, which was not very effective in this lethal study compared to NV-387. We have also found that NV-387 IV administration as well as PO (Oral) administration was substantially superior to each of the approved drugs Tamiflu, Rapivab and Xofluza in an Influenza A/H3N2 lethal lung infection model. We believe that NV-387 is expected to possess similar strong antiviral activity against Influenza A/H5N1 "Bird Flu" viruses as well. Our belief is based on the putative mechanism of NV-387. NV-387 is a host-mimetic, direct acting antiviral designed as decoy, to look like a cell decorated with sulfated proteoglycans, to which over 90% of human pathogenic viruses including H5N1 are known to bind. We have found that NV-387 has strong antiviral activity against all tested coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirions. NV-387 was substantially more effective than remdesivir in a lethal coronavirus infection animal study. We believe that NV-387 has a strong potential for the treatment of COVID as well as "Long COVID". COVID continues to cause substantially more fatalities annually than Influenza viruses. Long COVID has substantial personal as well as societal costs. Available drug, Paxlovid (Pfizer) has significant limitations for patient suitability. Thus a new drug against COVID and Long COVID is sorely needed. About NanoViricides NanoViricides, Inc. (the "Company") ( ) 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. Additionally, nanoviricides mimick the host-side features that the viruses continue to require in spite of mutations, and therefore the viruses would be highly unlikely to escape the nanvoricide drugs. Our lead drug candidate is NV-387 (drug product NV-CoV-2) for the treatment of RSV, COVID-19, Long COVID, Influenza, Bird Flu H5N1, and other respiratory viral infections. NV-387 has successfully completed a Phase 1a/1b human clinical trial in healthy subjects with no reported adverse events even at the highest and repeated dosages. This trial was conducted by the drug sponsor, Karveer Meditech Pvt. Ltd., our licensee and collaborator in India. The Company is currently focused on advancing NV-387 into Phase II human clinical trials for treatment of RSV infection. Our other advanced candidate is NV-HHV-1 for the treatment of Shingles rash, HSV-1 "cold sores" and HSV-2 "genital ulcers". 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 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. The phrases "safety", "effectiveness" and equivalent phrases as used in this press release refer to research findings including clinical trials as the customary research usage and do not indicate evaluation of safety or effectiveness by the US FDA. "NOAEL" means "No-Observed-Adevrese-Event-Level", which is the maximum dosage employed at which there were no adverse events found in animal studies. "MTD" means "Maximum Tolerated Dose", which is the maximum dosage employed that does not compromise survival of the animals. 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". API means active pharmaceutical ingredient. Contact: NanoViricides, Inc. info@nanoviricides.com Public Relations Contact: MJ Clyburn, TraDigital IR clyburn@tradigitalir.com SOURCE: NanoViricides, Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com

TaiGen said that in a Phase III study, the investigational oral antiviral TG-1000 significantly shortened the time to alleviation of symptoms versus placebo in adults and adolescents with acute, uncomplicated influenza. The company’s partner Joincare Pharmaceutical is expected to file a marketing application for the drug in mainland China in the second half.Kuo-Lung Huang, chief executive of TaiGen, remarked that he is “cautiously optimistic” about the potential of TG-1000, given that sales of influenza medicines in mainland China exceeded RMB 6 billion ($829 million) last year, returning to pre-COVID pandemic levels.The trial randomised 752 patients with uncomplicated acute influenza infection - the majority being type A influenza - to receive either TG-1000 or placebo. The study's primary endpoint was time to alleviation of all influenza symptoms, while secondary goals, which are still being assessed, include antiviral efficacy, symptom resolution, and complications associated with influenza.Results showed that the median time for alleviating all influenza symptoms in the TG-1000 group was 60.9 hours, significantly shorter than 87.9 hours in the placebo arm. TaiGen noted that TG-1000 had a favourable safety profile, with the frequency of adverse events in both groups being comparable. No deaths or serious adverse reactions were reported.Along with China, TaiGen plans to explore development of TG-1000 in the US, EU and other Asian markets.

Researchers have shed new light on how viral evolution, population immunity, and the co-circulation of other flu viruses shape seasonal flu epidemics. Researchers have shed new light on how viral evolution, population immunity, and the co-circulation of other flu viruses shape seasonal flu epidemics. The research, published today as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife, explores the relationships among evolutionary and epidemiological quantities in influenza, and presents fundamental findings that substantially advance our understanding of the drivers of influenza epidemics, according to the eLife editors. The authors used a rich set of data sources to provide what the editors say is compelling evidence on the roles of genetic distance, influenza subtype dynamics, and epidemiological indicators in predicting flu epidemics. The findings highlight genetic distance and subtype interference as key factors in determining the timing and severity of annual outbreaks. Influenza viruses continually accumulate genetic changes in two key proteins displayed on their surface -- called haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) -- a process known as antigenic drift. Antigenic drift allows the virus to escape immune recognition in people who have been vaccinated or had a previous infection, leaving them exposed to re-infection. Of the two types of influenza viruses that routinely circulate together in humans (influenza A and B), influenza A, and particularly subtype A(H3N2), has the fastest rates of antigenic drift and causes the most severe illness and death. Amanda Perofsky, the lead author of the study and a research scientist at the Brotman Baty Institute, University of Washington, US, and Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, US, says: "In theory, antigenic drift will lead to more susceptible individuals, which in turn should lead to more flu infections and larger or more severe epidemics. However, prior evidence for this in epidemiological data has been mixed. Mutations in HA are considered to cause the majority of antigenic drift, so surveillance efforts to monitor and predict influenza evolution focus on HA. There has been less focus on NA, even though antibodies against NA also correlate with immunity and influence infection severity. Moreover, outside of flu pandemics, little is known about how different cocirculating influenza subtypes potentially interfere with each other, affecting the size of outbreaks." In this study, Perofsky and colleagues from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and World Health Organization tracked A(H3N2) evolutionary dynamics -- measured by both genetic sequences and serological assays -- and linked this to epidemiological flu surveillance data in the US over 22 influenza seasons before the COVID-19 pandemic. They started out by identifying different indicators of flu evolution each season, using HA and NA genetic sequence data from the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) Epiflu database and serological data on immune cross-reactivity between viruses provided by World Health Organization Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS) Collaborating Centres in Tokyo, London, Melbourne and Atlanta. They created phylogenetic trees showing lines of evolution of A(H3N2) viruses over time and measured genetic and antigenic distances between viruses circulating in consecutive seasons, to show how far apart the viruses evolved in that timeframe. Next, the team explored which of these measures of viral 'fitness' are most strongly related to variation across A(H3N2) flu outbreaks in different years. When comparing the predictive performance of sequence-based and serological evolutionary metrics, they found that genetic distances based on broad sets of antigenic sites ("epitopes") in HA and NA had the strongest, most consistent relationship with the disease burden of annual epidemics, rates of virus transmission, and severity of infection, and influenced the dominant subtype of influenza A -- A(H3N2) or A(H1N1) -- circulating in each season. When relating genetic distance in HA versus NA to A(H3N2) epidemiology, antigenic drift of H3 (the HA antigen of the A(H3N2) virus) was more strongly linked to epidemic size, viral transmissibility, the age distribution of cases, and the number of excess deaths caused by the A(H3N2) virus, while antigenic drift of N2 (the NA antigen of the A(H3N2) virus) was more strongly linked to the intensity of epidemics (the "sharpness" of the epidemic curve) and greater prevalence of A(H3N2) cases relative to A(H1N1) cases in the population. Increased drift in N2 was also associated with fewer days from epidemic onset to peak incidence (a measure of the speed of the epidemic). "The direct link between NA antigenic drift and A(H3N2) incidence patterns was a surprising and key result from our study," says Perofsky. "We expected HA to exhibit stronger associations with seasonal incidence, given that it elicits a stronger immune response than NA." Taken together, the authors' results showed that greater antigenic drift in both HA and NA was linked to larger, more intense epidemics, higher transmission, a greater dominance of the A(H3N2) subtype, and more cases in adults than children. Finally, the team applied machine learning models to assess the relative importance of viral evolution, prior population immunity, the co-circulation of other flu viruses, and vaccine coverage and effectiveness in predicting regional A(H3N2) epidemic dynamics. Using one of the models (called a random forest) they could accurately predict regional epidemic size, peak incidence, and subtype dominance patterns of seasonal outbreaks that occurred between 1997 and 2019. Surprisingly, they found that the incidence of A(H1N1) was more predictive of A(H3N2) epidemics than viral evolution, suggesting that interactions between different viral subtypes -- that is, subtype interference -- play a key role in influenza type A infection dynamics. "Our study shows that influenza epidemic dynamics are shaped in part by the virus' antigenic drift in both surface proteins, and that genetic sequence indicators of antigenic drift were more informative than serological (or antibody) data for predicting epidemics in the timeframe analysed," concludes senior author Cécile Viboud, a staff scientist at Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, US. "Our work is the first to link NA antigenic drift to epidemic burden, timing, and the age distribution of infections. The connection between NA drift and seasonal incidence further highlights the importance of monitoring evolution of both HA and NA to inform the selection of strains for annual flu vaccines and epidemic forecasting efforts."