PharmAust tests continue to hit high COVID-19 suppression rates

ASX-listed PharmAust’s cancer fighting drugs continue to inhibit COVID-19 in its testing of the effects of the drugs on cultured cells infected by the virus.

Recent preliminary results from the laboratory studies undertaken for PharmAust by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne show the virus can be suppressed by up to about 95 per cent following treatment with the company’s monepantel and monepantel sulfone products.

Application of the monepantel and monepantel sulfone anti-cancer drugs in the preliminary pre-clinical studies has now been demonstrated to reduce COVID-19 infection in two independent cell lines – one of a non-human primate kidney and the other a human lung.

PharmAust tempered any overexuberance in relation to the inhibition rates in the early findings, saying the cultured human lung cells may not necessarily reflect how COVID-19 infects and replicates in human organs under physiological conditions. Work on these cell types needs to be repeated in order to get consistent results and anywhere near suggesting infected humans may react the same to treatment with monepantel and monepantel sulfone.

Before any formal clinical trials, the company says its in-vitro testing requires follow-up work with a view to both repeating the high suppression results and verifying how monepantel and monepantel sulfone affects COVID infectivity. More in-vitro and ex-vivo testing is planned.

PharmAust Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Richard Mollard said: “Further preliminary confirmation of the activities of monepantel and monepantel sulfone against SARS-CoV-2 in alternative, and especially human, cellular models is an encouraging step. These data will fuel further development of the effects of monepantel administration upon SARS-CoV-2 for clinical application.”

The promising laboratory results achieved by the clinical-stage oncology company form part of a global effort to halt the spread of the virus and create a working vaccine.

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