Business
Ligand's Technologies Support and Enable Potential Coronavirus Treatments
Partner Gilead Sciences’ Captisol®-enabled remdesivir (GS-5734) highlighted in the New England Journal of Medicine for treating the first case of the 2019
About this update from Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated
[{"type":"text","content":"\nPartner Gilead Sciences’ Captisol®-enabled remdesivir (GS-5734) highlighted in the New England Journal of Medicine for treating the first case of the 2019 novel coronavirus in the United States\n\n\nOmniAb® antibody discovery platform may be used by partners for the discovery of fully-human therapeutic antibodies\n\n\nLTP Platform™ technology shown to increase targeting and efficiency of certain direct-acting antiviral agents\n\n SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--\nLigand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ: LGND) announces that its proprietary technologies are being utilized by partners to support and enable potential treatments for the 2019 novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, that originated in Wuhan, China. Technologies that have shown potential or general applicability in the antiviral or therapeutic antibody areas include Ligand’s Captisol, OmniAb and LTP (Liver-Targeted Prodrug) platforms.\n\n\nLigand partner Gilead Sciences’ Captisol-enabled remdesivir (GS-5734) was highlighted in the New England Journal of Medicine last week for treating the first case of 2019 novel coronavirus in the United States1. Gilead Sciences stated that while there are no antiviral data for remdesivir that show activity against 2019-nCoV at this time, there are available data in other coronaviruses. Remdesivir is not yet licensed or approved anywhere globally and has not been demonstrated to be safe or effective for any use.\n\n\nPlans are being developed by current and/or prospective partners to use Ligand’s OmniAb antibody discovery platform as well as Ligand’s patented antigen technology for the discovery of antibodies to coronavirus, with inbound interest specific to OmniChicken™. Antibodies have been shown to potentially treat a variety of viral-mediated diseases, including those caused by coronaviruses.\n\n\nPublished literature shows that Ligand’s Liver-Targeting Prodrug (LTP) technology offers a potential new generation of nucleotide antiviral agents.2 An example of this is development progress by Nucorion Pharmaceuticals’ NCO-1010. Nucorion is a venture-funded biotechnology company focused on developing anticancer and antiviral agents targeting diseases of the liver, initially directed to China. Ligand entered into a multi-program LTP technology licensing agreement with Nucorion in 2016. Nucorion closed a Series B financing in 2019 led by Guangdo...