SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / December 7, 2021 / Ainos, Inc. ("we", "our", or the "company"), (OTC PINK:AIMD), a diversified healthcare company engaged in the discovery and development of pharmaceutical, medical devices and biotech products announced it entered into a Development and Sales Agreement with InnoPharmax, Inc. ("InnoPharmax"), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused in the development and commercialization of products for the treatment of infectious diseases, immunology, and oncology.
Ainos and InnoPharmax agreed to jointly develop and promote an orally administered cytotoxin-induced complementary combined therapy ("CICCT") for the treatment of COVID-19 and potentially other viral infections. The companies plan to develop this combined therapy leveraging Ainos' VELDONA® drug platform based on low-dose oral interferon along with InnoPharmax's orally administered antiviral drug, GemOral®.
"We believe that CICCT combined with interferon may increase the production of human cytotoxin, an autoimmune hormone that is reported to inhibit viruses," said Ainos' CEO Chun-Hsien Tsai. "The high level of COVID-19 cases -- still nearly 100,000 new confirmed cases despite increasing vaccination rates reported each day and more than 1,000 confirmed deaths during the past week in the U.S. alone according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - suggests that the world needs a broader range of effective antiviral therapies," he observed.
"For COVID-19 patients we are particularly focused on cytokine storm, an imbalanced innate immunity response that causes severe inflammation in the lungs and necrosis associated with a high IL-6/IFN ratio," remarked Chun-Hsien Tsai. "We believe a combined therapy of Ainos' VELDONA® drug therapeutic and InnoPharmax's D07001 GemOral® can effectively increase the secretion of interferon in the human body by stimulating secretion in vivo and in vitro, thereby inhibiting the replication of coronavirus and effectively enhancing immunoreaction," Mr. Tsai said.
The companies plan to jointly perform animal and investigator-initiated trials for safety and efficacy testing in Taiwan early next year and conduct a subsequent Phase III clinical trial with the goal of applying for regulatory approvals, including U.S. emergency use authorization if available, sometime in the third quarter of 2022. Upon commercialization, Ainos will be responsible for global sale in countries for which the product is approved for uses, and InnoPharmax will be responsible for drug production and manufacturing. The two parties will share profits on drug sales.
"Given the current market for other similar proposed antiviral regimens, we assume the cost per treatment globally to be approximately USD 500, subject to change in accordance with market dynamics," Mr. Tsai said.
According to a press release by the U.S. National Institutes of Health published on October 18, 2021, "Laboratory studies have shown that the normal type 1 interferon response is suppressed after infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In addition, previous studies of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 demonstrated reduced production of interferon in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection in many patients, and this was associated with more severe disease."
Ainos' VELDONA® is a low-dose oral interferon alpha (IFN-α) therapeutic, with the ability to "interfere" with viral replication by protecting cells from virus infections, spread and cancer cell division. Interferon alpha (IFN-α) also has various antitumor activities including the direct induction of cytotoxicity and the activation of NK cells and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity.
Studies have shown that type I interferon, IFN-α, (B lymphocytes and monocyte) and IFN-β (fibroblast) not only directly inhibits the replication of virus cells but also stimulates the operation of the immune system. Type II interferons, including IFN-γ (T lymphocyte), have the functions of antivirus, activating phagocytes and inducing expression of MHC molecular. We plan to investigate combining the functions of type I and type II interferons with the hopes of more effectively inhibiting the replication of virus and enhance immunoreaction. We are focused on reducing the continuous secretion of inflammatory cytokine to avoid severe pneumonia reactions and cytokine storms.
InnoPharmax's oral drug D07001 GemOral® inhibits inflammatory cytokine, such as IL-6 and CCL2, and also induces the production of interferon-stimulated gene (ISG) and interferon (IFN-b and IFN-λ). Gemcitabine, a key compound in GemOral®, can improve the performance of type II interferon-γ and CD8+ of immune cells. Gemcitabine can replace cytidine to be embedded in DNA or RNA during the process of nucleotide replication, resulting in failure of nucleic acid replication and cytotoxicity which is beneficial to inhibit the replication and the growth of virus in the body.
Overview of VELDONA®
- VELDONA® may be superior to high dose injectable interferon in safety, cost and ease of administration.
- Administered sublingually as small tablet (lozenge) in doses ten thousand times less than injectable interferon
- Binds to surface (mucosal) cells in the mouth/throat stimulating white blood cells and activates the immune system
- VELDONA® not aimed at a single disease or viral infection (as current antiviral and vaccine candidates), but used to activate overall immune system to prevent and treat a broad range of diseases and viruses such as Covid 19
- The effectiveness of VELDONA® in research studies. VELDONA® was orally administered to C57BL/6J mice once a day. After 7 days, the mice were infected with human influenza virus (H1N1 virus) and the control group was given placebo to mice for seven consecutive days. For comparison, the oral low-dose VELDONA® group significantly reduced (P