NanoViricides views options for EKC drug

US firm NanoViricides says that it has signed or has in attorney-review non-disclosure agreements with major pharmaceutical companies to enable further discussions regarding its nanoviricide drug candidate against epidemic kerato-conjunctivitis (EKC). "We have already scheduled meetings to discuss the results of our recent animal studies against EKC," said the company's Eugene Seymour adding: "we have significant interest from several large pharma companies in both the USA and abroad."

The company has previously reported that it has seen rapid and significant clinical response using a nanoviricide drug candidate eye-drop treatment in animal eyes. EKC was induced by adenovirus-5 viral infection in this study. The trial is now in its final stages and the biological samples collected will be analyzed over the next several weeks.

"We initiated the EKC project as a result of specific interest from certain pharmaceutical companies," said Dr Seymour. "We are very pleased with our initial success, despite the fact that adenovirus is a non-enveloped virus," added Anil Diwan, president of the company, noting that "it took us a very short time to develop and field a drug candidate against EKC; just a matter of months. This demonstrates the robustness of our underlying technology. We had strong theoretical basis in designing nanoviricide drug candidates against these non-enveloped adenoviruses."