Nano cap Cocrystal Pharma (NASDAQ:COCP) jumps 36% after hours on the heels of its announcement that it has initiated a coronavirus program.
Last week, it announced a license deal with Kansas State University Research Foundation (KSURF) for certain antiviral compounds for the potential treatment of norovirus and coronavirus infections.
It says that it will seek collaboration partners to advance development.
Evercore ISI’s Umer Raffat says that preliminary data from a China-based study of Gilead Sciences’ (GILD +3.4%) remdesivir for the potential treatment of COVID-19 could be available this month, ahead of the expected release in April. The study began in early February at Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital, in the epicenter of the outbreak.
Health experts believe that the antiviral will show sufficient efficacy to warrant widespread deployment in an effort to corral the outbreak. A little over a month ago, the first confirmed case in the U.S., a man in Seattle, responded well to treatment. All symptoms, except his cough, resolved within a week.
Remdesivir (GS-5734), a nucleotide prodrug that blocks a key enzyme needed for viral replication, is also being developed for Ebola virus infection.
Many of the companies caught up in the coronavirus frenzy continue to show substantial volatility, driven by news events, press releases and profit-taking. Sampling of today’s action:
NanoViricides (NNVC +38.7%) (drug progress), Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO +18.7%) (vaccine), OPKO Health (OPK +23.1%) (testing service), Co-Diagnostics (CODX -8.1%) (test) (profit-taking); Chembio Diagnostics (CEMI +4.1%) (test); Vir Biotechnology (VIR +3.8%) (drug)
Spherix (NASDAQ:SPEX) announces the execution of an exclusive option agreement with UMBC for the technology in the patent for “Methods of Treating Coronavirus Infection.”
Shares of the nano-cap are higher by 37% to $0.97.
Volume is already at 7.7M vs. average daily volume of just over 1M.
The Wall Street Journal reports that artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a big role as biotechs race to develop treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.
There are currently no approved treatments for the respiratory infection. Antiviral drugs from Gilead Sciences’ (GILD +1.1%) and AbbVie (ABBV -1.6%) are currently being tested as is a vaccine from Moderna (MRNA -0.4%).
Taking a drug candidate from the discovery phase to a clinical trial usually takes more than a year, but the use of AI may enable a much shorter timeline. Insilico Medicine, Vir Biotechnology (VIR +2.1%) and Atomwise are among a group of firms leveraging AI to discover high-potential prospects. Vir believes that it may be able to test a candidate later this year, adding that it should be only “weeks or months” before it has the right antibodies.
Companies are also employing machine-learning algorithms to analyze large chemical datasets to predict how potential drugs will behave in the body, thereby culling the list of candidates to those with greater expected efficacy and safety.
Insilico is using two AI techniques, generative adversarial networks (GANs) to create protein-binding molecules and reinforcement learning in which an AI system learns to improve its predictions and conclusions to guide the molecules to specific objectives.
The availability of a new drug or vaccine for COVID-19 will still be about 18 months away at best. In the near term, Gilead and AbbVie’s medicines may be the most realistic options.
