Shares in Starpharma Holdings Ltd (ASX: SPL) are cruising higher today and now trade 4% in the green at 92 cents apiece.
Investors are responding positively to a company announcement regarding its lead drug candidate Viraleze in the fight against the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
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What did Starpharma announce?
Starpharma advised that the antiviral agent in its Viraleze antiviral nasal spray label, "SPL7013", was shown to achieve "the maximal possible reduction of virus infectivity against the Omicron variant of COVID-19, in laboratory testing."
Viraleze is Starpharma's broad-spectrum antiviral nasal spray. SPL7013, being the active ingredient, has in fact been shown to have "potent antiviral and virucidal activity in multiple respiratory viruses". It can now add COVID-19 to its list.
For reference, a 'virucidal' agent is able to deactivate and/or destroy inactive viruses in human tissues.
The studies Starpharma mention today showed that SPL7013 was effective in reducing impacts of the Omicron variant in greater effect versus other agents used in competing antiviral nasal sprays, including rival compounds iota-carrageenan and heparin.
"SPL7013 was approximately 30 times more potent than iota-carrageenan against the Omicron variant, which is currently in multiple marketed nasal sprays, and 70 times more potent than heparin, which is currently being contemplated as a nasal spray", the company said.
In another plus, the formulation was shown to be effective in reducing viral activity of the other COVID-19 variants – the so called 'variants of concern', the release notes.
What's more, due to its mechanism of action, the SPL7013 formula might even be immune itself to mutations of the virus' 'spike protein' – the keystone feature that allows COVID-19 to infiltrate our cells.
In contrast, the mRNA version of COVID-19 vaccines utilises a synthetic version of the spike protein to induce an immune response in humans.
Speaking on the results, Dr Jackie Fairley, CEO of Starpharma, mentioned:
Starpharma is pleased to see that SPL7013 is virucidal and achieved >99.5% reduction of infectious virus in the Omicron variant. SPL7013 has now demonstrated impressive performance against all five 'Variants of Concern' tested, including Delta, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and now also Omicron. The high level of activity against Omicron is entirely consistent with previous data for SPL7013, which has shown antiviral and virucidal activity in multiple viruses. This new data further illustrates SPL7013's breadth of activity and the potential real-world
benefits of Viraleze.
Starpharma share price
In the last 12 months, the Starpharma share price has collapsed over 57% and is down 31% this year to date. During the past month of trading, shares have collapsed by another 15%. As such, Starpharma is trailing the broad healthcare index in 2022, as shown below.
