NanoViricides Reports Breakthrough Measles Drug NV-387 Boosts Survival by 130% in Animal Study

NanoViricides, Inc., a publicly traded company (NYSE Amer.: NNVC ) (the "Company"), and a clinical stage, leading global pioneer in the development of broad-spectrum antivirals based on host-mimetic nanomedicine technology that viruses cannot escape, announced that it has achieved significant success in developing a drug against Measles.

Strong antiviral effectiveness against Measles virus was found for NV-387, the Company's broad-spectrum drug candidate, in a humanized animal model study.

"NV-387 is on its way to become the very first drug to treat Measles," said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, adding, "Measles cases are skyrocketing globally, and the world needs a drug."

In a lethal animal model of respiratory infection with Measles virus, NV-387 increased survival of animals to 17 days on average compared to 7.4 days in untreated animals, an increase of 130%. There were no signs of toxicity from the drug NV-387. Additionally, dose-dependent increase in survival was observed.

NV-387 is a clinical stage broad-spectrum antiviral drug that is designed to act as a decoy of a cell, attacking the virus by presenting to it the very features that the virus requires for binding to the cell, and upon binding, destroying the virus particle so it cannot infect. Over 90-95% of human pathogenic viruses require the sulfated proteoglycan feature that NV-387 presents to the virus.

The Company has conducted an animal trial to evaluate certain drug candidates in a lethal animal infection model of measles virus. The Company secured specially modified mice that bear the human form of CD150/SLAM protein that the Measles virus requires to enter cells for this study. Measles does not infect mice natively, so humanized mice were required for this study.

The Company hypothesized that NV-387 could be effective against Measles because NV-387 was previously found to completely cure RSV lung infection in a lethal animal model. Both RSV and Measles virus belong to paramyxoviruses family. Additionally, both viruses are known to use heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG) as the initial attachment point before causing cellular infection. However, the mode of actual infection between these viruses differs drastically. RSV primarily infects lung epithelial cells, whereas Measles virus infects h-CD150 bearing immune system cells. The animal study validated the Company's hypothesis.