Bold Therapeutics Expands COVID-19 Consortium

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Jun 11, 2020, 10:48 ET

VANCOUVER, BC, June 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Bold Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, has expanded its COVID-19 collaborations to include four more academic researchers: François Jean, PhD and Ted Steiner, MD, both researchers from the University of British Columbia; Stephen Barr, PhD, a researcher at Western University; and Len Seymour, PhD, a researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. These new collaborations significantly expand Bold Therapeutics' COVID-19 consortium. In April, the company announced a collaboration with Marc-André Langlois, Faculty Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair in Molecular Virology and Intrinsic Immunity.

BOLD-100 is a first-in-class anti-resistance ruthenium-based small molecule drug which selectively inhibits stress-induced upregulation of GRP78 – an important resistance, survival and proliferation pathway common across cancers. In addition, there is extensive and rapidly growing literature suggesting that GRP78 plays a critical role in host recognition, viral entry and viral replication.

"Our research team, supported by some of the brightest scientific minds in the space, continue to generate data elucidating the potentially broad antiviral utility of BOLD-100," added E. Russell McAllister, CEO of Bold Therapeutics. "In the past couple of months, we have engaged with numerous potential COVID-19 development and commercialization partners and generated significant positive feedback on our innovative antiviral program. BOLD-100 appears to have potentially broad application not only against SARS-CoV-2, but against other single-strand RNA viruses such as Dengue, West Nile, and Zika – and, potentially other yet-to-be-discovered pathogens."

In collaboration with François Jean, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and founder of the UBC Facility for Infectious Disease and Epidemic Research (FINDER), one of the largest university-based containment level-3 (CL3) facilities in the world, Bold Therapeutics has initiated a Mitacs Accelerate project entitled: "Antiviral properties and mechanism of actions of BOLD-100 against SARS-CoV-2 in 2D and 3D cell culture systems."

Bold Therapeutics has also initiated a parallel Mitacs Accelerate project with Theodore Steiner, MD, Professor and Division Head, Division of Infectious Diseases at UBC entitled: "Cellular inflammatory and antiviral effects of BOLD-100, a novel therapeutic agent in development for COVID-19."

Bold Therapeutics also established a collaboration with Stephen Barr, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Western University. Dr. Barr is testing BOLD-100 against SARS-CoV-2 isolates using in vitro assays, with initial data expected later this month.

Extending its consortium of COVID-19 researchers outside of North America, Bold Therapeutics is also collaborating with Len Seymour, PhD, Director of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Oxford, who will be testing BOLD-100 against different isolates of SARS-CoV-2 using in vitro assays.

"We are focused on a data-driven COVID-19 development strategy, and this impressive international network of collaborators allows us to generate the data necessary to support our further clinical development of BOLD-100 as an antiviral," stated Jim Pankovich, Executive Vice President, Clinical Development. "We expect initial data from these partnerships in the next month, and, in parallel, we are working to secure funding so that BOLD-100 can progress rapidly into human clinical trials."

For more information, please visit the COVID-19 section on Company's website at www.bold-therapeutics.com/covid-19.

Media contact:
E. Russell McAllister
[email protected]
(604) 262-9899

SOURCE Bold Therapeutics Inc.