Jinwon Life Sciences and US Wistar Institute Collaborate on Nipah Virus Prevention and Treatment Development

GeneOne Life Science announced on the 11th that it has agreed to jointly research and develop a novel small molecule drug for the prevention and treatment of Nipah virus with the Wistar Institute located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

This research is led by Dr. Luis J. Montaner, head of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) research program and the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center at the Wistar Institute, a global leader in biomedical research fields such as cancer, immunology, infectious diseases, and vaccine development.

Dr. Montaner’s research team has extensive experience in developing small molecule therapeutics for infectious diseases, including HIV and COVID-19. Drug screening and small molecule compound design for this study are conducted by Dr. Joseph Salvino, an expert in the field and head of the Molecular Screening & Protein Expression Facility at the Wistar Institute.

The Nipah virus is a zoonotic RNA virus belonging to the Henipavirus genus, first identified in humans and pigs on farms in Malaysia and Singapore. Nipah virus infection is an acute, febrile viral zoonotic disease.

After an average incubation period of 5 to 14 days, symptoms similar to a cold such as fever, headache, muscle pain, vomiting, and sore throat appear. If symptoms worsen, neurological symptoms such as encephalitis and mental confusion may develop. The disease causes fatal encephalitis in humans, leading to death.

Hundreds of people have lost their lives to this virus in several Asian countries including Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, and Singapore. The Nipah virus has a fatality rate of up to 75% and the potential for mutation, making it a disease that global health authorities constantly monitor for possible pandemics. With no vaccine or treatment currently available, the World Health Organization (WHO) lists the Nipah virus as one of eight priority diseases with a high risk of international outbreak.

Co-research leader Dr. Luis Montaner stated, “Developing new treatments for the Nipah virus through collaboration between GeneOne Life Science and the Wistar Institute is critically important for global health every week.”

Park Young-geun, CEO of GeneOne Life Science, said, “As part of diversifying our product portfolio targeting the Nipah virus, we are very pleased to jointly research and develop a novel small molecule antiviral therapeutic modality with the Wistar Institute, a global leader in this field, in addition to the Nipah virus vaccine currently under development by our company.”

He added, “This joint research will lay the foundation for our company’s new drug development for zoonotic infectious diseases in the future, and as a proactive response to fatal infectious diseases with no current vaccines or treatments, we expect to strengthen our research and development capabilities for emerging infectious disease therapeutics and contribute to global public health.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.