Experimental Ebola Drug From Sarepta Protects 75 Percent Of Monkeys In Study

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) - An experimental Ebola drug from Sarepta Therapeutics Inc protected 75 percent of lab monkeys injected with the virus, scientists from the company and the U.S. Army reported on Tuesday. The drug, called AVI-7537, joins ZMapp from Mapp Biopharmaceutical and a compound from Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp as the agents shown to cure non-human primates given otherwise-lethal injections of Ebola virus. The ZMapp and Tekmira drugs protected 100 percent of lab monkeys in studies, giving them a possible edge. But, unlike those drugs, Sarepta's drug has been formally tested in healthy human volunteers at high doses and caused no serious side effects. While other experimental agents are in extremely limited supply or difficult to produce, there is a straightforward manufacturing system for Sarepta's drug, analyst Steve Brozak, president of WBB Securities, said in an interview. AVI-7537 is an antisense molecule, essentially a mirror image of a molecule that carries instructions from Ebola's genes to its protein-making machinery. The drug binds to the messenger, shutting down the virus's ability to reproduce. In previous monkey studies, a combination of antisense molecules proved effective. The new research, published in the journal mBio, found that a single one, targeting a messenger for a protein called VP24, was sufficient. ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news