SHELTON, CT / ACCESSWIRE / January 30, 2020 / NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE American: NNVC) (the "Company") a global leader in the development of highly effective antiviral therapies based on a novel nanomedicines platform, is confirming public disclosures in articles by various industry journals and other articles, that it is working on developing a treatment for the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV, or the Wuhan coronavirus.

"We have already initiated a program for developing a treatment for the 2019-nCOV," said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President and Executive Chairman of the Company, adding, "Our platform technology enables possibly the most rapid pathway for new drug development against viral diseases. Of course, we will need support from governmental and international agencies such as the US CDC, WHO, and Chinese CDC to successfully develop these treatments, and, if developed, to get them to the patients in the fastest possible time. At this time, the Company does not have a collaboration with any of these agencies, and we have not been contacted by any of these entities or asked to develop a treatment for this virus. We had collaborations with the CDC and USAMRIID in the past. The Company intends to pursue a relevant collaboration for testing of our drug candidates soon."

The new 2019-nCoV is known to be closely related to the SARS-CoV of 2002-2003 epidemic. In fact it has been shown to use the same cell surface receptor as SARS-CoV, namely ACE2.

"We have already found some lead candidate ligands in our chemical library that can bind to the SARS-CoV spike protein in the same fashion as it binds to the cognate receptor, ACE2, using molecular modeling tools," explained Dr. Diwan, adding, "We believe this means we may already be significantly ahead in developing a potential treatment for the new Wuhan virus."

While the Company commissions synthesis of the anti-nCoV nanoviricide drug candidates for testing, some of which are already in our hands, in parallel, the Company has also started preparing for testing of the candidates in cell cultures against certain known BSL2 coronaviruses, including ones that use the ACE2 receptor. Less threatful viruses in the same family that use the same receptor can serve as valid test viruses for screening our broad-spectrum antiviral drug candidates. The Company has its own BSL2-certified virology laboratory at its Shelton campus where it intends to perform this testing.

The Company has its own cGMP-capable drug manufacturing facility. This highly customizable facility can be employed to produce several thousand doses of drugs per batch for treating coronavirus patients, if the Company's drug successfully transitions to obtaining an exploratory treatment approval for use in patients.

The Company's platform technology has already proven that it can result in safe drugs. The Company's first IND-ready clinical drug candidate, namely NV-HHV-101, has successfully undergone a standard battery of Safety and Toxicological testing, as previously disclosed by the Company in press releases and SEC filings.

The Company is building on its previous work against coronaviruses. The Company's technology relies on copying the human cell-surface receptor to which the virus binds, and making small chemicals that are called "ligands" that will bind to the virus in the same fashion as the cognate receptor. These ligands are chemically attached to a nanomicelle, to create a nanoviricide®. It is anticipated that when a virus comes in contact with the nanoviricide, not only would it land on the nanoviricide surface, binding to the copious number of ligands presented there, but it would also get entrapped because the nanomicelle polymer would turn around and fuse with the virus lipid envelop, harnessing a well known biophysical phenomenon.

"It is like a ‘Venus-Fly-Trap' for the virus," explained Dr. Diwan.

The Company focuses on developing broad-spectrum ligands and, thereby, broad-spectrum nanoviricides, copying the specific human cellular receptor. No matter how much a virus mutates, it lands on the same cell surface receptor, and binds in the same fashion. Thus, it is highly unlikely that a virus might escape a nanoviricide against it, in spite of mutations.

In 2014, the Company had worked on developing antiviral treatments against MERS-CoV, and coronaviruses in general. It had developed potential candidates for testing in animal models. The MERS-CoV threat was eclipsed by the Ebola epidemic of 2015. The Company developed viable drug candidates against Ebola in a rapid response time of a few weeks and sent them for testing to USAMRIID. These initial candidates showed significant activity. The Company believes that another cycle of optimization would have resulted in a candidate ready for animal testing under the criteria established by USAMRIID then.

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