WPD Pharmaceuticals Licensor Announces Confirmatory in Vitro Analysis of WP1122

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WPD Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CSE: WBIO)(FSE: 8SV1) (the “Company” or “WPD”), a clinical stage pharmaceutical company, is pleased to announce that Moleculin Biotech Inc. (“Moleculin”), the company that sublicenses the WP1122 compound to WPD for WPD’s use in 29 countries mainly in Europe, announced on June 16, 2020 that a repeat of previous in vitro testing has corroborated the antiviral potential of WP1122.

Although developing in vitro data is an initial step and the data may not necessarily reflect the antiviral effects in vivo, the results of this repeated round of in vitro testing received by Moleculin on June 1, 2020, confirm that WP1122 has an antiviral effect on Human Coronavirus 229E ("HCoV-229E"), a surrogate of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19.

On May 27, 2020, Moleculin announced results from the initial preclinical assessment of the potential for WP1122 to address COVID-19.  The testing involved a cell viability assay, followed by a virus yield reduction assay.  These tests were intended to assess and compare in vitro antiviral properties of WP1122 and its active moiety (subpart) 2-DG.  In this regard, an unedited version of an article that has now been accepted for publication in the scientific journal, Nature  (Bojkova, D. et al. Proteomics of SARS-CoV-2-infected host cells reveals therapy targets, Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2332-7 2020)*, reports that one of the therapeutic targets in SARS-CoV-2 is glycolysis. This work performed by an independent research team at the Göethe-University of Frankfurt further showed that targeting glycolysis with 2-DG stopped replication of SARS CoV-2 in vitro.  These results are consistent with previous research reports demonstrating the antiviral activities of 2-DG in other viruses.  Moleculin stated that it believes that without the benefit of WP1122's prodrug structure, 2-DG's rapid metabolism and limited drug-like properties prevent it from being sufficiently effective in vivo and that in vivo testing of WP1122 may make its benefits more apparent.