"DAS181 is a particularly important potential new broad-spectrum drug for influenza because as an entry blocker, it works by a mechanism of action different from all other antiviral drugs either on-market or in development," said John M. Nicholls, M.D., Associate Professor, Department of Pathology, the University of Hong Kong, one of the two corresponding authors on the publication. "Our study clearly shows DAS181's remarkable effectiveness in protecting fresh human tissue from infection by a highly lethal H5N1 strain. Though the world is currently coping with a pandemic caused by a much less virulent H1N1 strain, DAS181 has shown significant inactivation of both types of influenza receptors found in the human airways."

In the "Report To The President On U.S. Preparations For 2009-H1N1 Influenza" by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) announced yesterday, it is recommended that "It will be important to develop new classes of drugs to expand the armamentarium. A particularly promising new approach is to develop drugs that block the virus by acting on a human cellular function ('host target'), rather than a viral protein ('pathogen target'), because such drugs should be less likely to encounter acquired resistance." DAS181 development takes this "promising new approach."

NexBio will be presenting data on DAS181 activity against Novel H1N1 and against seasonal influenza isolates from winter 2008-09 that are resistant to Tamiflu((R)) in in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo models at the upcoming Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) annual meeting in San Francisco, CA on Tuesday, September 15, 2009.

Source: nexbio