I'm just a part-time investor replenishing the cave from daddy's massive expenditure. But it does give me access to most of his toys, although unfortunately the bat mobile is still off limits.
I've been doing a little copy reading today between chores, and have put together a few thoughts. It's nice when even the journalistic stuff fits within my vision of Biotron's potential, as does the real science of course. 'modern gene-chemistry techniques have made it possible to build vaccine candidates within just days, medical ethics require that they then be carefully tested on animals and small numbers of healthy humans for safety and effectiveness.' https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
But as we know and already have seen in the case of nCoV, the ethics commitments here have been postponed for obvious reasons. I'd love to discuss this matter more as I'm well versed on the topic, but a public forum is not the place for it: What ethics, whose ethics, bla bla bla ...
Getting back to potential treatment, here is an exert from some recent science journalism that concludes with an interesting statement from a US virologist. As you will read, he's not very confident about the future success of HIV antivirals on 2019nCoV.
'It’s not yet clear if the virus does respond to HIV drugs — but the rationale to try it is pretty simple. Timothy Sheahan, a virologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told us in a phone interview that there aren’t that many FDA-approved antiviral drugs, so when a new virus emerges, doctors just give patients “whatever they think might help.” Many existing antivirals, he said, are HIV medications, so it’s natural to turn to those. And there is some precedent for HIV drugs possibly working against coronaviruses. During the SARS outbreak, for example, scientists performed a drug screen and identified the HIV drug cocktail of lopinavir and ritonavir as having potential antiviral activity against SARS. That drug combo was also associated with better outcomes among a small group of SARS patients, although it was never tested in a clinical trial, so it’s hard to say if it was truly effective. It is also currently being tested in a clinical trial in Saudi Arabia against another disease caused by a coronavirus, Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS. Sheahan, however, is skeptical that HIV drugs will be very effective against the new virus. The levels of the drug that are likely required to diminish viral replication, he said, “are not achievable” in people. And in his experiments against the MERS virus in cell culture and in mice, he found lopinavir and ritonavir offered little improvement in severe lung disease or viral replication.' https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/baseless-conspiracy-theories-claim-new-coronavirus-was-bioengineered/
His skepticism that HIV drugs will be very effective against the new virus, is worthy of consideration in light of Biotron's armament of antivirals. This is to do with the same reason why HIV antivirals have only limited success against HIV. As we all should know by now from their successful phase 2 trials, BIT225 has cleared all HIV in those areas of the body that standard HIV antivirals have not.
Similarly, their test results on other RNA viruses, including human corona viruses, have also shown by the same mode of action, encouraging results:
'The SARS virus encodes an E protein which is shown for the first time, by the present inventors, to act as an ion channel. As similar E proteins are present in other coronaviruses, the compounds, compositions and methods of the present invention would have utility in the inhibition and/or treatment of infections by other coronaviruses.' http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2019/0389816.html
For those new readers, the E protein is the smallest of the four essential molecules that make up any corona virus and is responsible for the replication process. Other antivirals attack the larger S Protein that is responsible for the virus to latch onto hosts cells, but is limited to be able to penetrate hidden cells, mostly in human organs. This results in the constant need for HIV antivirals in patients, and probably is the same reason why Sheahan is skeptical for HIV antivirals to be completely useful on nCoV.
But such a point is yet to be demonstrated with the new corona virus, although Biotron is sitting in the box seat to do so. Their unique finding with RNA virus's Ion Channels - pathway of host cells that the virus enters and hence, can replicate within - has been demonstrated in SARS sufficiently to warrant an immediate application to nCoV.
This in fact is what they are doing.
BIT Price at posting:
12.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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