WEST HAVEN, CONNECTICUT -- June 16, 2011 -- NanoViricides, Inc. (OTC BB: NNVC) (the "Company") reported today that Dr. Eugene Seymour, its CEO will discuss recent Company events that will include a description of the Company’s technology at an Investor Conference sponsored by ProActive Investors to be held today, Thursday, June 16th. The venue is the Denver Omni Hotels and Resorts, 500 Interlocken Boulevard, Denver (Broomfield), Colorado. The Conference will begin at 6PM and end at 8PM. Dr. Seymour will be available after the presentation to take questions. Registration is free and the sponsoring organization can be contacted at http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/register/event_details/50.
Much of the discussion will center on the nanoviricides® platform technology as well as the recent influenza results. The Company has completed several anti-influenza animal efficacy studies to date. The Company has improved its FluCide™ candidates successfully with each study.
In the most recent study, the Company has reported that post-infection treatment with its optimized FluCide™ drug candidates achieved 1,000-fold reduction in the levels of infectious virus in the lungs of animals with a lethal influenza virus infection. Of great clinical significance is the fact that 2 of the optimized FluCide™ drug candidates maintained this greatly reduced lung viral load throughout the duration of this 21 day study. Thus, treatment with FluCide drug candidates appeared to protect against the complete cycle of infection, virus expansion and spread of infection in the lungs that follows the initial virus infection. These findings corroborate the previously reported findings of both increased animal survival and protection of the lungs from influenza virus tissue damage in FluCide-treated animals in this H1N1 influenza study.
In contrast, Oseltamivir (Tamiflu® Roche) demonstrated very limited efficacy in the same study. Thus, animals treated with oseltamivir showed less than a 2-fold reduction in lung viral load at the same time point where FluCide candidates demonstrated a greater than 1,000-fold reduction (i.e. at 4 days post infection). This indicated a 500-fold greater reduction in viral load by FluCide drug candidates over Oseltamivir. In addition, in the animals treated with Oseltamivir (Tamiflu®, Roche) the lung viral load increased at 7 days to the same level as that found in the infected, untreated control animals shortly before their death. In contrast, the lung viral load in the FluCide candidate treated animals remained at the low levels attained at 4 days for the entire 21 days study duration for two of the candidates.
The Company has previously reported that the same optimized FluCide™ nanoviricide drug candidates achieved significantly increased survival (20.2 to 22.2 days) and greater than 95% reduction in lung inflammation and necrosis in this study. In contrast, animals treated with Oseltamivir showed a mean survival of just 8.3 days and only a 50% reduction in lung inflammation and necrosis.
The studies were conducted by Dr. Krishna Menon, PhD, VMD, MRCS, at KARD Scientific, MA. One million virus particles of Influenza A Strain A/WS/33 (H1N1) were aspirated directly into the lungs of mice. The same quantity of virus infection was repeated at 22 hrs. This influenza model was designed to be uniformly fatal in 100% of the infected, untreated animals within 5 days after infection. Treatment with the FluCide candidates and Oseltamivir commenced 24 hours after the first viral infection. The duration of the study was 21 days.
The Company will present the data and discuss their significance at this meeting.