- BetterLife’s (BETR) AP-003 has shown similar efficacy against COVID-19 variants in a preclinical study
- Early data show potent anti-viral activity against the COVID-19 Wuhan reference strain and Alpha and Beta variants
- Further studies are ongoing to test against the Gamma (Brazil), Delta (India) and Lambda (Peru) variants
- The company is planning a randomized placebo-controlled trial in COVID-19 patients to test its proprietary inhaled version of AP-003
- BetterLife Pharma is a biotechnology company focused on treating neurological disorders
- BetterLife (BETR) is unchanged at $0.245 per share
BetterLife’s (BETR) AP-003 has shown similar efficacy against COVID-19 variants in a preclinical study.
Dr. Stephen Barr Laboratory and ImPaKT Facility at Western University are developing the anti-viral, recombinant human interferon AP-003 for people at higher risk of developing severe COVID-19.
Early data show potent anti-viral activity against the COVID-19 Wuhan reference strain and Alpha and Beta variants. Further studies are ongoing to test against the Gamma (Brazil), Delta (India) and Lambda (Peru) variants.
AP-003 or rhIFN⍺2b, a Type I interferon, is a naturally occurring protein integral to the body’s first line of anti-viral defenses. There is evidence that coronaviruses suppress IFN⍺2b production, allowing the virus to evade the immune system and replicate unabated.
There is also accumulating evidence that coronavirus replication is blocked by the addition of exogenous IFN⍺2b, thereby allowing cells to restore their normal anti-viral activity.
BetterLife has entered into a clinical research agreement with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile to conduct a randomized placebo-controlled trial in COVID-19 patients to test its proprietary inhaled version of AP-003.
Ahmad Doroudian, CEO of BetterLife, said,
“COVID-19 is very much still a threat to the global population and its variants are a key challenge when developing therapeutics to protect against it. The broad mechanism of action of interferon is such that our scientists hypothesized it could be equally effective against different variants. We are very pleased to see that early preclinical data confirms this as this takes us one step closer to the potential result of reducing overall hospitalization rate, long-term tissue damage and death by reducing the overall severity of the disease.”
BetterLife Pharma is a biotechnology company focused on treating neurological disorders.
BetterLife (BETR) is unchanged at $0.245 as of 9:30 am ET.
