Nanoviricides signs deal with Public Health England

NanoViricides was last featured here in a July 2, 2013 posting about its DengueCide™ drug and deal with the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Today, the company has announced a ‘confidential disclosure agreement with Public Health England (I believe it’s roughly equivalent to Health Canada’s Drug and Health Products [Division]), from the July 9, 2013 news item on Azonano,

NanoViricides, Inc. (the “Company”) said it has signed a “confidential disclosure agreement” with Public Health England, the British government’s equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The July 8, 2013 NanoViricides news release (a direct link to news release not possible but you can find it on the company’s homepage), which originated the news item, gives a brief explanation of what this agreement entails,

The agreement will allow the scientists at Public Health England to develop a specific proposal for the testing of different nanoviricides, such as FluCide®, against viruses of “mutual interest” to both organizations. More specifically, the first two viruses of mutual interest are H7N9, the influenza virus now circulating in China as well as the latest version of the coronavirus, now circulating in the Middle East. It is now referred to as the MERS virus. This virus is similar to the SARS virus that infected 8000 people and killed approximately 800 people 10 years ago. Both H7N9 and the MERS CoV (coronavirus) have extremely high case fatality rates. …

I was interested to find the company’s description of its approach to creating therapeutic treatments is biomimcry-based, from the company’s homepage,

A “nanoviricide” is an agent designed by the Company to fool a virus into attaching to this antiviral nanomachine, in the same way that the virus normally attaches to the receptors on a cell surface. Once attached, the flexible nanoviricide glob wraps around the virus and traps it. In the process, the virus also loses its coat proteins that it needs to bind to a cell. The virus is thus neutralized and effectively destroyed. A nanoviricide completes the task of dismantling the virus particle without immune system assistance. This is the putative or designed mechanism of action of a nanoviricide. Thus nanoviricides represent the next great advance in “Immunotherapeutics” (antibodies and vaccines), which are currently well established antiviral strategies.

NanoViricides, Inc. is a development stage company with this unique nanomedicine technology. The Company is developing nanotechnology-based biomimetic anti-viral medicines, that we call “nanoviricides®”.

It seems there’s been more enthusiasm for NanoViricides’ work in Europe. I found only two business deals listed in the plethora of news releases on the company’s homepage. Given this is a US-based company, I am a bit surprised. Canadians, rightly or wrongly, tend to believe that US companies are good at getting support within their own country and we chastise fellow Canadians for not being as supportive of our own as are Americans. I trust this situation with NanoViricides is a temporary anomaly.

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