WAKEFIELD, MA – March 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) Innovation Pharmaceuticals (OTCQB:IPIX) (“the Company”), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, announced today further details on the Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) signed with a leading public health-focused U.S. university and top coronavirus expert. Under the terms of the confidential agreement, virologists plan to evaluate the potential antiviral properties of Brilacidin, the Company’s lead defensin-mimetic drug candidate, toward developing Brilacidin as a potential novel coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.
Vaccines containing defensins as adjuvants have been shown, both in vivo and in vitro, to activate the primary innate antiviral immune response and mediate other immunomodulatory activities against a number of viruses, including coronaviruses. Defensins and their mimetics, like Brilacidin, thus represent promising therapeutics developed as vaccines to target COVID-19, the deadly respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which has emerged as a worldwide pandemic.
This new research is independent of that being conducted on Brilacidin at one of the U.S. 12 Regional Biocontainment Labs (RBL). The RBL is testing Brilacidin’s potential inhibitory activity as a small molecule drug against SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for COVID-19.
Defensins as Vaccines—Academic Literature
· Kim, J, et al. “Human β-defensin 2 Plays a Regulatory Role in Innate Antiviral Immunity and Is Capable of Potentiating the Induction of Antigen-Specific Immunity.” (pdf) Virol J. 2018; 15: 124. Published online 2018 Aug 8. doi: 10.1186/s12985-018-1035-2.
· Park MS, et al. “Towards the Application of Human Defensins at Antivirals.” (pdf) Biomol Ther (Seoul). 2018 May 1;26(3):242-254. doi: 10.4062/biomolther.2017.172.
· Biragyn, A. “Defensins—Non-Antibiotic Use for Vaccine Development.” (pdf) Curr Protein Pept Sci. 2005 Feb;6(1):53-60.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak poses a significant life-threatening and economic risk throughout the world. Over 182,000 cases have been diagnosed in at least 136 countries, resulting in 7,100 reported deaths, including 4,700 cases and 85 fatalities in the U.S. There are no effective approved therapies to treat COVID-19. Brilacidin is one of the few drugs targeting COVID-19 that has been tested in human trials for other clinical indications, providing an established safety and efficacy profile, thereby potentially enabling it to rapidly help address the emerging worldwide coronavirus crisis, developed both as an intravenous medicine and as a vaccine. There is no assurance made or implied that testing Brilacidin for antiviral activity against any coronavirus will be successful.