Business
Sunshine Biopharma Identifies a Lead Anti-Coronavirus Compound
MONTREAL, QC / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Sunshine Biopharma Inc. (OTC PINK:SBFM), a pharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and
About this update from Sunshine Biopharma Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"MONTREAL, QC / ACCESSWIRE / October 7, 2020 / Sunshine Biopharma Inc. (OTC PINK:SBFM), a pharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of oncology and antiviral drugs today announced that it has screened and subsequently identified a lead compound from its library of Coronavirus protease inhibitors. The screening which pinpointed the lead compound was performed at the University of Georgia, College of Pharmacy under the leadership of Dr. Scott D. Pegan, Director of the Center for Drug Discovery and Interim Associate Head of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences. The Company is currently looking into expanding its collaboration with the University of Georgia and will be seeking the University's assistance in advancing the development of the newly identified lead compound.The compounds which were screened are based on the technology described in Sunshine Biopharma's recently filed patent application covering small molecules which can be used to treat Coronavirus infections. Next, Sunshine's lead compound will be put through a battery of in vitro tests to evaluate its specific inhibitory activity against the SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro), one of two virus encoded proteases essential for viral replication. In addition to cleaving the virus encoded polyprotein at three different sites to generate mature virus proteins, PLpro also cleaves certain host proteins resulting in suppression of the host immune response and allowing virus replication to proceed unchecked which enhances the virus' ability to cause severe morbidity. Following the in vitro tests, the lead compound will be moved forward to the cell culture testing stage followed by mice studies before entering human clinical trials.About Sunshine Biopharma's Coronavirus TreatmentSevere Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of COVID-19, the current ongoing pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 1,000,000 people worldwide since it first appeared in December 2019. There are currently no drugs that can effectively arrest replication of the virus in people who have contracted the illness. On May 22, 2020, Sunshine Biopharma filed a provisional patent application for a library of molecules which were designed to inhibit the Coronavirus proteases, thus shutting down the ability of the virus to mul...