Cats Inspire Researchers Developing COVID-19 Drug

(Photo : Orsi Oletics on Pixabay)
California-based biotech company, Anivive Lifesciences, is currently working on an antiviral drug for COVID-19 that's inspired by cats, and it has new preclinical study findings to support the project.

Last week, Gilead Sciences announced it would test its COVID-19 drug, remdesivir, against the related compound in GS-441524 in animals following an investigation it faced over the latter drug, which has been used for several years now to treat FIP or feline infectious peritonitis even if it is not licensed to use it.

Now, Anivive Lifesciences, another California-based biotech company, is working on an antiviral drug for COVID-19 inspired by cats, and it has new preclinical study findings to support the project.

Researchers at the University of Alberta presented that a drug devised to treat COVID-19 that can result in FIP inhibited the main protease of both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2.

The study authors reported in the journal Nature Communications that the treatment prevented coronaviruses in humans from duplicating in cell cultures.

FIP's Similarity with COVID-19

While the majority of the animals with FIP do not display coronavirus symptoms, some cats are likely to develop a severe illness if the infection mutates to infect a specific immune cell type.

Also, according to reports, the virus spreads throughout the body of the cat, igniting a fatal inflammatory response that can lead to paralysis or the buildup of fluid in the lungs.

This way, the coronavirus in the cat is somewhat similar to SARS-CoV-2. Both severe COVID-19 in humans and FIP cases are driven by what Gainesville-based University of Florida veterinarian, Julie Levy, calls "dysfunctional inflammatory immune response."

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Licensed in 2018

Originally, Anivive licensed GC376 in 2018 from Kansas State University. Since then, the biotech firm has also been working to devise the drug as an antiviral treatment for FIP, a developmental illness in cats that's frequently resulting from a coronavirus and is deadly if untreated.

In July, the company said that it began two preclinical trials to identify if GC376 could also be considered as a treatment for COVID-19.

According to Anivive, the drug was developed to constrain a protease, also known as 3C, which stimulates the duplication of several coronaviruses that infect both animals and humans. Such infections comprise FCoV or feline coronavirus, typically leading to mild symptoms in cats, although it can result in FIP.

Additionally, two preliminary studies involving cats with FIP found that the said treatment worked against the illness within 14 days and was said to be well tolerated.

Anivive is presently scaling up its drug production for more extensive studies in cats. For this particular new research, the team tested both GC376 and GC373, its parent drug, for their capability of inhibiting the 3C protease. As a result, both drugs were seen to block the replication of the virus.

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The Necessity of Antiviral Drugs

In the study, the authors acknowledged that vaccines for protection from COVID-19 are rapidly advancing. However, they proposed that antiviral drugs are still essential in the short term. COVID-19, they say, is an infection with a considerable mutation rate.

The researchers also indicated in their study that in some people, COVID-19 has continued for over two months with a possibility of reinfection.

According to structural biology professor M. Joanne Lemieux, Ph.D., from the University of Alberta, GC376 could be advanced fast into human tests considering its track record in the field of veterinary medicine.

And since GC376 has already been used to treat coronavirus-infected cats, and it works efficiently with minimal to totally no toxicity, the drug has already reportedly passed the preclinical phases. This then, Lemieux added, has allowed them in their research to move forward.

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