NanoViricides, Inc. (OTC BB: NNVC.OB) (the "Company") reported today that its FluCide™ drug candidates demonstrated dramatically improved survival in animals administered a lethal dose of influenza virus. Animals treated with all of the different influenza nanoviricide drug candidates survived for dramatically longer periods as compared to Tamiflu® treated animals.
“An increase in dosage is now likely to lead to total survival even in this completely lethal virus challenge model.”
Animals treated with the best of the optimized FluCide nanoviricide drug candidates survived greater than twice as long (18.1 days) as opposed to the animals treated with Tamiflu (only 7.8 days). In a previous study, the Company had reported that animals treated with the then best anti-influenza nanoviricides survived for as long as 13.9 days in the same animal model.
The studies were conducted by Dr. Krishna Menon, PhD, VMD, MRCS, at KARD Scientific, MA. One million virus particles of Influenza A Strain A/WS/33 (H1N1) were aspirated directly into the lungs of mice. The same quantity of virus infection was repeated at 22 hrs. This influenza model was designed to be uniformly fatal in 100% of the infected, untreated animals within 5 days after infection. Treatment with FluCide candidates as well as Tamiflu® (Roche) commenced 24 hours after the first viral infection.
Additional clinically important parameters including viral load, and lung histopathology are being analyzed to confirm the therapeutic potential of the FluCide drug candidates. The results of these investigations will be reported as they become available.
"We are extremely happy with the substantially improved performance achieved in our optimization efforts," said Randall Barton, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of the Company, adding, "An increase in dosage is now likely to lead to total survival even in this completely lethal virus challenge model."
"Our Influenza Program is progressing satisfactorily towards a pre-IND submission to the FDA in the near future," said Eugene Seymour, MD, MPH, CEO of the Company.
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