Candidate: Treatment for SARS-CoV-2 viral infections
Type: Antisense oligonucleotide designed to suppress the expression of a host factor that is essential for the viral infection cycle, to be based on company’s proprietary LNAplus™ platform
Status: Secarna on April 28 said it entered into a collaboration with the First Affiliated Hospital at Guangzhou Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) for the development of a treatment or prophylactic for SARS-CoV-2.
Secarna said its approach of targeting host factors target host factors is beneficial compared to approaches that target the virus directly, since most viruses are known to evade targeted therapies by mutation over time. Also, since different viruses often depend on common host factors, a therapy addressing a host factor linked to existing or emerging viruses could potentially also serve as a treatment against future challenges, according to the company.
Secarna cited a study published last year that showed the LNAplus platform successfully developing ASOs targeting host factor NPC1 to effectively reduce Ebola virus infection in vitro. The effectiveness of that approach against SARS-CoV-2 is now being studied by Prof. Claus Bachert, MD, PhD, at the University of Ghent and SYSU.
COVID-19: 200 Candidates and Counting
To navigate through the >200 potential therapeutic and vaccine options for COVID-19, GEN has grouped the candidates into four broad categories based on their developmental and (where applicable) clinical progress:
● FRONT RUNNER – the most promising therapeutics/vaccines based on clinical progress, favorable data or both.
● DEFINITELY MAYBE – earlier phases with promising partners, or more advanced candidates in development that have generated uneven data.
● KEEPING AN EYE ON… – interesting technology, attracting notable partners, or both, but preliminary data.
● TOO SOON TO TELL – longshots pending additional experimental and/or clinical data.
GEN has also tagged the most common treatment types:
● ANTIVIRAL
● VAX
● ANTIBODY
● RNA
