Allarity Therapeutics Provides Update on Pre-Clinical Testing of Stenoparib’s Antiviral Activity Against New Variants of Coronavirus

Press Release     

 
-Current testing follows preceding pre-clinical tests indicating efficacy of the novel PARP inhibitor stenoparib against SARS-Cov-2, the virus which is the origin of the B.1.1.7 variant, B.1.351 variant, and other variants.

-Allarity Therapeutics is one of the leading companies worldwide developing a potential treatment
 for SARS-Cov-2 and the B1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants.

Hørsholm, Denmark (24 February 2021) – Allarity Therapeutics A/S (“Allarity” or the “Company”) today announced an update related to the ongoing pre-clinical testing of the antiviral activity of its PARP inhibitor, stenoparib, against Coronavirus Variant B.1.1.7 (“British variant”) and Variant B.1.351 (“South African variant”). The tests are being conducted by the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute at Northern Arizona University (NAU), a leading U.S. infectious disease test center.

The current and planned in-vitro studies, focusing on SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, follow previous positive pre-clinical test results with stenoparib as a treatment of SARS-CoV-2 first announced on 26 August 2020, and since published in the peer-review journal mBio (mbio.asm.org) on 19 January 2021. The previously announced data showed that stenoparib inhibits SARS-CoV-2 as a single agent, and in addition that stenoparib, in combination with remdesivir, was also active in inhibiting the virus. The concentration of stenoparib required for virus inhibition was lower in the combination study with remdesivir than in the single agent study. 

Since the B.1.1.7 virus variant initially was labelled “Variant of Concern 202012/01” by Public Health England (PHE), an agency of the UK Department of Health & Social Care, in a publication on 21 December 2020, it has spread rapidly within the UK, and has since been detected in all EU/EEA countries.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has modeled a trajectory indicating that this variant will become predominant in the U.S. in March 2021.  In South Africa, the B.1.351 variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerged independently of B.1.1.7. This variant shares some mutations with B.1.1.7. Cases attributed to this variant have been detected in multiple countries outside of South Africa, and this variant was reported in the U.S. at the end of January 2021.