The Starpharma Holdings Limited (ASX: SPL) share price is on course to end the week on a strong note.
At the time of writing, the dendrimer products developer's shares are up 7% to $1.66.
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Why is the Starpharma share price pushing higher?
The Starpharma share price is pushing higher today after the company released another update on its COVID-fighting Viraleze antiviral nasal spray.
According to the release, new data demonstrates that the active ingredient in the Viraleze antiviral nasal spray, SPL7013, has been shown to be highly effective against various COVID-19 strains.
The release explains that SPL7013 achieved a more than 99.9% reduction of virus against the Alpha (UK), Beta (South Africa) and Gamma (Japan/Brazil) SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus variants of concern in laboratory-based virucidal assays. The testing of SPL7013 was conducted in the laboratory of virologist Professor Philippe Gallay at The Scripps Research Institute in the United States.
Management advised that SPL7013 virucidal activity against the Alpha, Beta and Gamma variants in the current assays were broadly consistent with the virucidal activity demonstrated in the US strain of SARS-CoV2 in the same assay.
It notes that within 30 seconds to 1 minute of exposure, SPL7013 achieved >99% reduction in infectious virus against Beta and Gamma variants, and >99.9% within 5 minutes. The Alpha variant was quicker, achieving a >99.9% reduction in infectious virus within 30 seconds to 1 minute of exposure.
Starpharma's CEO, Dr Jackie Fairley, commented: "We are very pleased to see such potent and rapid virucidal activity of Viraleze against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. These variants continue to spread across the globe and challenge efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic."
"Given its broad spectrum of activity, Viraleze could prove to be particularly beneficial as an additional protective measure against these variants. This could prove particularly useful in settings where these variants can be problematic, like hotel quarantine and major international events such as the Tokyo Olympics," she concluded.
