The facility in Shelton, Connecticut is expected to be completed by the end of December 2013 and will produce clinical amounts of the firm’s anti-viral drug pipeline using its patented ‘nanoviricide’ platform that attracts, encapsulates and destroys virus particles by a lipid-lipid interaction.
“The building was previously a printing plant and needed a complete renovation to make it a sterile pilot manufacturing facility to make the intravenous versions of our flu and dengue drugs,” Nanoviricides’ CEO, Dr. Eugene Seymour, told Biopharma-Reporter.com.
According to the company (named after its technology), nanoviricides could become “to viruses what penicillin became to bacteria,” with the ability to target and destroy such viruses as influenza, rather than suppress them, as is the case of currently available drugs such as TamiFlu.
The new 18,000sq ft facility will manufacture these nanoviricides which consist of a nanomicelle, made of biodegradable polymers and a short peptide that sits on its surface to attract the virus.
“All of our drugs share the common nanomicelle,” Seymour told us. “The only thing that's different is the peptide attached to its surface.”
He explained: “It mimics what's expressed on the surface of the target cell of the virus and serves to attract the virus. After the virus attaches to our ‘drug’, the nanomicelle opens up and encapsulates the virus, destroying it.”
The company currently has nine products in its pipeline currently undergoing animal testing, with its influenza drug FluCide and Dengue fever drug DengueCide approaching currently approaching human clinical trials.
“This is a unique technology and this far, we have gotten patents in 25 countries with 100 expected by the end of the year,” Seymour said. “Every single large pharma has expressed an interest in our technology but they all want to wait until we're in humans next year before proposing a licensing deal.”
With the company estimating the total antiviral market to be worth around $75bn a year, other products in its pipeline include drugs for Herpes, Ebola and Rabies.