DGAP-News: NanoViricides, Inc. / Key word(s): Miscellaneous 
NanoViricides, Inc.: Broad-Spectrum Direct Antiviral Nanomedicine Should Remain Effective Against COVID-19 Virus 
Variants, Says NanoViricides, Inc.'s President, Dr. Anil Diwan 
2021-01-27 / 12:15 
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. 
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Broad-Spectrum Direct Antiviral Nanomedicine Should Remain Effective Against COVID-19 Virus Variants, Says 
NanoViricides, Inc.'s President, Dr. Anil Diwan 
SHELTON, CT / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2021 / NanoViricides, Inc. (NYSE American: NNVC) (the "Company") a global leader 
in the development of highly effective broad-spectrum antiviral therapies based on a novel nanomedicines platform, 
today discusses the current developments in the COVID-19 pandemic and the Company's exciting accomplishments related to 
it. 
"We welcome the strong engagement of President Biden and his new administration's commitment to combat this 
once-in-a-century pandemic with new approaches and fresh ideas," said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President of the Company. 
We would like to note that the scientific community at large and regulatory efforts to date have remained focused on 
(a) vaccines, (b) antibodies, and (c) re-development of pre-existing drugs. Even as alarm bells were raised by renowned 
scientists regarding the likelihood of escape mutations and the limitations of any vaccines and antibody therapies in 
combating a rapidly evolving global viral pandemic, there has been an effort to downplay these risks at all levels. 
This has left the world now grappling with a situation where vaccines are being rolled out even as virus variants that 
are highly likely to be resistant to current vaccines and antibody drugs have already been found to be spreading 
rapidly. Current vaccines are now assumed to require constant updates and re-inoculation campaigns to keep up with 
ongoing changes in the virus. Attention needs to be focused instead on broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutics that 
minimize the possibility of virus variants escaping the drug, thereby making the costly ongoing development of vaccine 
updates, their deployment and re-inoculation campaigns unnecessary. 
NanoViricides believes it is very likely the only company with a platform technology that enables development of drugs 
that viruses would not escape. In fact, we have successfully screened our COVID-19 drug candidates to be able to 
protect cells against infection by distinctly different coronaviruses. This broad-spectrum drug development approach 
was adopted to ensure that our drug candidates should remain effective even as future variants of SARS-CoV-2 evolve in 
the field, as was already anticipated by us at that time. 
Additionally, NanoViricides is the only company that, to the best of our knowledge, is developing antiviral treatments 
designed to (a) directly attack the virus and disable it from infecting human cells, and (b) simultaneously block the 
reproduction of the virus that has already gone inside a cell. Together, this strategy of a two-pronged attack against 
the virus, both inside the cell and outside the cell, can be expected to result in a cure for coronaviruses and other 
viruses that do not become latent. 
The Company's nanoviricides(R) platform technology is based on biomimetic engineering that copies the features of the 
human cellular receptor of the virus. No matter how much the virus mutates, all virus variants bind to the same 
receptor in the same fashion. It appears that the later variants of SARS-CoV-2 may have evolved to bind to the human 
cellular receptor ACE2 more strongly, in general, based on published datasets. Thus, if these features of the cellular 
receptor are appropriately copied, the resulting nanoviricide drug would remain effective against current and future 
variants of the virus. 
Our current drug candidates to combat the COVID-19 pandemic are designed to attack not only SARS-CoV-2 and its current 
and future variants, but also many other coronaviruses, and will be useful even after the pandemic is over, because 
several coronaviruses are endemic in human populations. 
Our COVID-19 drug candidates successfully entered core safety pharmacology studies required prior to any human clinical 
trials around October/November, 2019. These studies have now been completed and we are anticipating the report from the 
external CRO shortly. We are now working on preparing a pre-IND application for filing with the US FDA as soon as 
possible. Additionally, we are actively seeking opportunities to engage appropriate sites for human clinical trials, 
and we are engaged in the preparation of clinical trial protocols and other activities that would be necessary for 
filing of an IND with the US FDA. 
The need for the broad-spectrum nanoviricide SARS-CoV-2 drug cannot be overstated in the current circumstances and the 
present status of the pandemic. To understanding this, we are providing a short review of the current state of the 
pandemic below: 
Strong government support led to rapid emergency use approval, and later full approval, of an already known antiviral 
drug now called Veklury (remdesivir, Gilead) early on. Strong fiscal support and regulatory enablements from the 
government also led to the emergency use approval of two different antibody drugs, one from Regeneron (REGN-CoV-2, a 
monoclonal antibody cocktail containing two different antibodies), and one from Eli Lilly (bamlanivimab, a single 
antibody for restricted use) in the fastest ever drug development timeframe. All of these antibody drugs target the 
viral Spike protein that binds to the human cellular receptor, ACE2. 
Even stronger commitments and strong government support led to the fastest ever emergency use approval of two vaccines, 
both employing nanotechnology; one by Pfizer-BioNTech, and one by Moderna, with additional vaccines in development. All 
of these vaccines target the original 2019-nCoV-Wuhan variant, and all but a few target primarily its Spike protein. 
Yet, as the vaccines are undergoing deployment, several new virus variants of tremendous concern have already emerged. 
Additional virus variants will continue to emerge at an even faster rate because of the widespread dissemination of the 
virus with many patient bodies serving as virus factories providing historically the biggest ever opportunities for the 
virus to escape existing vaccines and antibody drugs. Failure of vaccines and antibody drugs is therefore certain; the 
only question is how long will it be before the vaccines become substantially ineffective. 
Replacing current vaccine with a new vaccine, as has been suggested, would be an endless game of chasing a rapidly 
changing epidemic that would be costly and also would remain substantially non-responsive to the threat, since the 
virus will continue to remain many steps ahead of the vaccine. 
It is well known that viruses, particularly RNA viruses, mutate rapidly, and that such changes produce "variants" that 
can escape from vaccines as well as from antibody drugs. SARS-CoV-2 has a repair mechanism that retains some fidelity 
during reproduction, and therefore it changes less rapidly than Influenza A viruses or HIV. Nevertheless, given the 
significant penetration of the virus into human population, and the very high viral loads achieved in severe cases of 
the infection, the virus has a huge opportunity to change. Additional virus variants will undoubtedly continue to 
emerge at an even faster rate because of the widespread dissemination of the virus through many patients, their bodies 
effectively serving as "factories". This important concern, voiced by several eminent scientists, has not been regarded 
with the seriousness it deserves by supporting and enabling rapid regulatory development of broad-spectrum 
anti-coronavirus drugs. 
The world has already witnessed at least five important SARS-CoV-2 variants with significant impact, as a result of the 
large number of persons becoming infected. The very first important variant, namely D614G, replaced the original Wuhan 
strain completely and rapidly during the first wave of the pandemic itself. In the current second wave, we have seen 
emergence of the lineage B.1.1.7 variant from United Kingdom (Kent and London), the N501Y-V.2 (also called lineage 
B.1.351) from South Africa, and the P.1 variant (also called lineage B.1.1.248) from Brazil. California has seen 
lineage B.1.429 /(CAL.20C) variant become dominant in Los Angeles county recently, with over 50% of the infections. It 
appears to be replacing the earlier dominant CAL.20G variant. Several additional variants have been identified. New 
variants continue to be identified at a rapid pace as viral genome sequencing efforts are accelerated. 
Each of these five variants arose independently and in distinct geographic areas, and yet they share many common 
features, including a number of mutations in the receptor-binding region of the coronavirus Spike protein. It appears 
that the 501Y mutation in the spike protein leads to stronger binding to the human cellular receptor ACE2, allowing the 
virus to infect more productively, and has become more common in later variants. It appears that the E484K mutation, 
along with other mutations, present in the South African and Brazilian variants, may result in escape from vaccines and 
antibodies. 
A major concern is the fact that the variants that are now becoming dominant have an accumulation of multiple 
mutations. This is predictive of such variants being more resistant to drugs and vaccines. They are likely to have been 
selected against drug pressure or immune system pressure, and thus would likely have resistance to antibody drugs, as 
well as other commonly used drugs, as suggested by eminent scientists. Further, it is now known that some of the new 
variants can cause infection of a previously recovered coronavirus patient, and sometimes may lead to more severe

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January 27, 2021 06:15 ET (11:15 GMT)