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Sunshine Biopharma’s Coronavirus Treatment Anticipated to Be Effective Against the New Variant Identified in the UK
MONTREAL, QC / ACCESSWIRE / December 22, 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 / December 22, 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 its Anti-Coronavirus drug development program is unaffected by the recent discovery of a new strain of Coronavirus in Southern England. The new strain appears to be more easily transmissible due to a mutation in the Spike Protein, the crown-like structure on the surface of the virus which allows it to gain entry into the host cell. Sunshine Biopharma's Anti-Coronavirus compound, SBFM-PL4, acts on the Coronavirus Papain-Like Protease (PLpro) which is a non-structural protein encoded by the viral genome and synthesized by the hijacked protein synthesis machinery of the host cell. Sunshine Biopharma's SBFM-PL4 inhibits PLpro and arrests viral replication. SBFM-PL4 is expected to inhibit the PLpro of the UK variant just as well as it does the original strain since the UK strain does not show any mutations in the PLpro gene.\"Mutations in PLpro which could affect the binding of SBFM-PL4 to PLpro would have to be in the essential regions of PLpro and would likely be deleterious and produce non-viable virus particles,\" said Dr. Steve N. Slilaty, CEO of Sunshine Biopharma.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 1.3 million 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 multiply and cause illness. Sunshine Biopharma has since screened the library and identified a lead Anti-Coronavirus compound (SBFM-PL4). The Company is currently conducting a series of in vitro tests to evaluate its specific inhibitory activity of SBFM-PL4 against the SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease (PLpro), one of two Coronavirus encoded proteases essential for viral replication. Following the initial in vitro studies, SBFM-PL4 will be moved fo...