NanoViricides says NV-387 shows ‘strong antiviral activity’

NanoViricides (NNVC) announced that its clinical lead drug NV-387 has shown strong activity against the Measles virus in cell culture studies as well as in a humanized animal model. Additionally, NV-387 treatment led to protection of lungs which is very important for keeping severely ill patients alive in late-stage viral infections. Currently, there is no approved drug for treating Measles. The company said, “Firstly, NV-387 was found to have direct antiviral effects against Measles virus in standard cell culture-based testing that measured increase in the extent of surviving infected cells upon treatment with the drug. Additionally, in a lethal Measles infection humanized animal model, NV-387 treatment led to a substantial increase in the number of survival days, to 17 days in NV-387-treated animals, from only 7.4 days in untreated animals, an increase of 130%, in a lethal lung infection of humanized mice by Measles virus1, as previously reported. The increased survival correlated with several improvements in the animal health indicating control of viral infection: Slow disease progression, and mild to moderate levels of lung damage as observed in microscopic histopathology. Protection of lungs was also evident from the significant reduction in the level of lung plaques compared to untreated cases. Reduction in the level of lung-damaging lymphocytes and neutrophils attracted into the lungs. These observations indicated that NV-387 treatment led to beneficial effects that protected lungs as well as reduced overall systemic infection. We have thus found that NV-387 has dual benefits of directly reducing the virus itself, together with protecting systemic cellular damage, and in particular, protecting lungs from viral damage as well as self-inflicted damage from killer cells…NV-387 has completed Phase I clinical trial in healthy subjects with no reportable adverse events, and was found to be safe and well tolerated. In IND-enabling studies, NV-387 was found to be extremely safe and well tolerated in animal models. NV-387 was found to be non-immunogenic, non-allergenic, non-mutagenic, and non-genotoxic.”