Interna Therapeutics has announced that under an agreement with the University of Oxford researchers led by Oxford’s Helen McShane will conduct a Phase 2a study of the company’s intranasal molecular nano-motor (MNM)-siRNA drug against SARS-CoV-2. The Phase 2a challenge trial, which the company notes is funded in part by the Gates Foundation, will enroll healthy volunteers who will receive the MNM-siRNA drug via nasal spray.
According to Interna’s web site, the company “develops a universal platform for intercellular delivery of Macromolecules drugs.” The company says that it is initially focusing development of the drug on the prevention of infection in severely immunocompromised people but that it could also potentially be used as a treatment post-infection.
Interna CEO Yuval Gottenstein commented, “This collaboration with Oxford University and the support of the Gates Foundation mark a defining moment for the company and for the field of RNA therapeutics. For the first time, we have the opportunity to demonstrate in a rigorous human challenge model that a locally administered siRNA drug can prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection at its point of entry and replication. We believe our MNM platform has the potential to protect millions of immunocompromised patients who remain vulnerable today, and also to establish a new paradigm for the prevention and treatment of respiratory viral diseases.”
Interna Scientific President Roger Kornberg, who won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on eukaryotic transcription, said, “This agreement represents a major step forward in demonstrating the clinical potential of our MNM platform in respiratory viral diseases. This important Phase 2a trial, very likely to be successful in light of published information, has implications well beyond respiratory viral disease, highlighting both the vast untapped market in this area and the broader potential of the Interna platform to address many unmet medical needs.”
Read the Interna Therapeutics press release
