New drug to prevent future pandemics in the pipeline

Researchers are working on an antiviral drug that could prevent pandemics in the future.   

The Korean researchers, who have began phase II clinical trial for CP-COV03, an experimental universal antiviral agent, believe that universal antivirals could stop a pandemic in its tracks.   

According to Hyundai Bioscience, which made the official announcement for its trials last week, this antiviral agent known as CP-COV03 has an innovative ‘viral removal’ mechanism applicable to all viruses unlike existing antiviral agents that target only specific viruses, and is expected to open a new chapter in the world’s antiviral drug history if it produces valid clinical results. The antiviral agent was developed in Korea.

CP-COV03 is an orally administered antiviral drug (active ingredient: niclosamide) developed as a universal treatment for viral diseases including Covid-19.

It is an innovative broad-spectrum antiviral agent with a pharmacological action that helps human cells to remove viruses by promoting ‘autophagy’ mechanism in which cells recognise the virus as a foreign substance and remove it themselves.

“If CP-COV03 is confirmed to be effective against Covid-19 in this clinical study, it means that a universal antiviral drug is born not only for Covid and its variants, but also for almost all other viruses such as influenza, hepatitis, HIV, Ebola, and herpes. Expected to gain the focus of the scientific communities, a favourable study result may become a ‘flare shot’ to signal the birth of the universal antiviral drug,” the experts highlighted.

 “The discovery of a substance with the mechanism that kills bacteria led to the 20th century medicine called penicillin, and CP-COV03 with a mechanism to eliminate viruses by promoting autophagy will be the first universal antiviral drug like penicillin,” Hyundai Bioscience explained.

This means that existing antiviral agents that inhibit the replication of specific viruses have a limited range of allowed patients due to drug toxicity, and are likely to cause the virus drug-resistance.

CP-COV03, having the characteristics of a new antiviral mechanism that targets cells, is free from such problems and the drug is in many ways similar to the human efficacy test of penicillin conducted in 1941. Penicillin, the world’s first universal antibiotic, is a drug developed based on the mechanism of inhibiting bacterial cell wall formation by antibacterial substances from blue mold. The birth of penicillin freed mankind from the fear of bacteria.

In 2020, a “pan viral” vaccine called alloprime was developed by Immunovative Therapies and Mirror Biologics Inc.

The vaccine utilises the body’s natural protection known as “heterologous immunity. Heterologous immunity describes what happens when the immune system’s initial response to a pathogen equips the immune system to better handle a different, unrelated pathogen. To encourage this type of immunity, the vaccine delivers living, activated allogeneic Th1-like memory immune cells.

The jab has now entered clinical settings; a Phase-I/II open-label study and researchers are recruiting 40 participants with virus diseases, including pneumonia, Covid-19, RSV pneumonia, influenza and ARDS. Participants of the study will receive five inoculations of Alloprime while primary outcome measurements are monitored. “Our pan-viral vaccine harnesses the same protection mechanism that naturally protects us from viral diseases – a healthy immune system,” Hyundai Bioscience explained.

“By remodelling the elderly immune system with a vaccine, we can arm the system to rapidly respond to a viral encounter in the same manner that a young immune system responds to a novel viral encounter,” Immunovative CEO and Founder Michael Har-Noy said two years ago.

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