Enochian BioSciences (ENOB.Q) announced today that the Company has acquired an exclusive license for an innovative technology to potentially treat and prevent all variants of coronavirus, including the cause of COVID-19, as well as influenza.
“The current COVID-19 variants are concerning. With the slow rollout of vaccines globally, there is a high risk of new mutations that will entirely escape the effectiveness of current vaccines. In addition, there are no currently available treatments that are easy to use and treat all variants. This novel technology potentially offers hope to help stop this pandemic as well as to prevent future coronavirus and influenza pandemics,” stated Dr. Mark Dybul, a prominent expert in HIV and Executive Vice Chairperson of the Board of Enochian BioSciences.
Enochian is a biopharmaceutical company focused on gene-modified cellular and immune therapies in infectious diseases and cancer. As a result, the Company has created a variety of approaches for treatment and prevention related to HIV, HBV, cancer and now COVID-19. This includes cellular immune-oncology products for the prevention of relapse of metastatic colon cancer and a genetically-modified dendritic cell platform for the treatment of cancer. Additionally, the Company has developed two new novel strategies intended to potentially cure HIV and HBV.
Enochian’s latest innovative technology was developed by Dr. Serhat Gumrukçu, the Company’s inventor and co-founder, and shows potential in treating COVID-19. This technology essentially tricks the virus into triggering the cells it infects to commit suicide rather than propagating. Delivered via nanoparticle, this technology is able to either rapidly treat an existing infection or prepare to intercept and prevent future infections.
Considering target cells of the virus live up to 20 months in human airways, a single inhalation of Enochian’s latest technology could potentially treat and protect against infection for long periods of time. Furthermore, the part of the virus that is tricked is similar in all variants of SARS-CoV-2 as well as other coronaviruses that cause disease in humans, including roughly 20% of common colds. Additionally, all pandemic influenza viruses since 1918 have a similar region to those targeted by this technology. With this in mind, Enochian has plans to submit a request for a Pre-IND meeting with the FDA for its COVID-19 treatment in the near term.
Enochian’s share price opened at $6.50, up from a previous close of $5.80. The Company’s shares are up 4.48% and are currently trading at $6.06 as of 10:38AM ET. This indicates that there has been noticeable change following the news.