NanoViricides' optimized FluCide drug candidates reduce viral load in H1N1 influenza virus study

Nov 15 2010

NanoViricides, Inc. (OTC BB: NNVC.OB) (the "Company") reports that its optimized FluCide™ drug candidates achieved dramatic reduction in viral load within the lungs of animals infected with a lethal dose of H1N1 influenza virus.

“Treatment with the Nanoviricide compounds resulted in a profound reduction in viral load. Other overt parameters of virus infection were similarly decreased. In addition, survival time was significantly increased”

The Company has previously announced that these optimized FluCide drug candidates demonstrated dramatically improved survival in this animal study. We now report that there was good correlation between viral load reduction and the length of survival.

The most effective FluCide candidate demonstrated a fifteen-fold (15X) greater viral load reduction as compared to Tamiflu(r) (Roche), and a thirty-fold (30X) greater viral load reduction as compared to untreated animals. Tamiflu demonstrated a viral load reduction of only twofold (2X) compared to the untreated animals in this high infection, lethality study. The viral load is a measure of the amount of infectious influenza virus in the lungs of infected animals. This profound decrease in viral load is consistent with the observed substantial increase in length of survival upon nanoviricide treatment. The Company previously reported that animals treated with this FluCide candidate survived for as long as 18.1 days on average, compared with only 7.8 days for Tamiflu treated animals. A survival length of 21 days would be considered indefinite survival in this 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. A repeat infection was performed 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 both FluCide candidates and Tamiflu commenced 24 hours after the initial viral infection. Tamiflu was administered orally twice daily at 20mg/kg (i.e. 40mg/kg/day) while the nanoviricides were intravenous injections at 100mg/kg every 48 hrs.

"Treatment with the Nanoviricide compounds resulted in a profound reduction in viral load. Other overt parameters of virus infection were similarly decreased. In addition, survival time was significantly increased," said Krishna Menon, PhD, President of KARD Scientific.

The nanoviricides have been well tolerated with no overt adverse effects observed even in animals treated for more than 2 weeks. The Company, therefore, believes that dosage of the nanoviricides can be further increased to achieve greater levels of effectiveness. Additional data related to various parameters including histology and cytokines are pending from this study. The Company plans to report on the same as the datasets are analyzed.