Local biotech company developing antiviral to combat coronavirus

DEKALB COUNTY — A nonprofit biotechnology company owned by Emory University has developed a promising antiviral compound to treat the contagious coronavirus, which is quickly spreading around the world.

"We have been in communication with a variety of agencies and the government in pushing this out as quickly as we absolutely can into human testing," said Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory Chief Operations Officer David Perryman.

Perryman told Channel 2’s Tom Regan that the antiviral compound has already proven successful in animal trials.

"We know this is what it does in animals. It blocks the ability of the virus to reproduce itself so it (shuts down). It causes a catastrophic mutation of the virus so it can't replicate itself, so it can't infect the cells in our lungs and potentially kill us," Perryman said.

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He said the antiviral will be taken in pill form, making it an effective way to contain future outbreaks of the coronavirus.

"It's really critical that you have a pill that could be disseminated broadly to head off the virus and you can administer it outside of a hospital," Perryman said.

While the government and Emory have funded early development of the antiviral, Perryman said neither entity funds late-stage drug development.

Drugs to fight viral diseases are not sufficiently profitable for pharmaceutical companies to fund.

He said that is why his firm has set up a GoFundMe page to solicit public donations to speed up human testing of the antiviral. It’s called #EndPandemicsNow.

"We got this potential drug. We're trying to push it safely into humans as quickly as possible. We're not doing this for profit. This is not about us. Time is of the essence. It's in 35 countries. It's continuing to spread," Perryman said.

If all goes according to plan, Perryman told Regan that he hopes human testing will start in May.

If approved by the government, it could start being widely distributed a few months later.

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