Wexford-based Coeptis Therapeutics Holdings Inc. is expanding its initiatives in cell therapy to include a potential antiviral treatment for respiratory infections like Covid-19 and RSV.
Coeptis (Nasdaq: COEP) said it would be exploring the use of DVX201, a natural killer cell therapy and platform, which it said would be the first-ever allogenic natural killer cell therapy for viral infections. DVX201 is derived from cord blood from pooled donor stem and progenitor cells, which help immune cells fight an infection inside a patient’s body.
There have been phase-one clinical trials for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome in patients who have been hospitalized with Covid-19. The trial involving 17 patients and the 25 infusions show tolerance among the patients and no toxicities, nor cytokine release syndrome.
"The tripledemic of flu, RSV, and COVID represents a serious challenge for our healthcare system for the foreseeable future,” said Dave Mehalick, president/CEO of Coeptis Therapeutics, in a statement. When vaccinations aren't sufficient and/or when vaccination rates are below levels necessary to stave off future epidemics, we believe this NK cell therapy approach has the potential to be an important treatment, either as monotherapy or in a complementary approach for severe infections.”
Dr. Colleen Delaney, chief scientific/medical officer at Coeptis, said the treatment has the promise to be a novel approach to treat viral infections with live cells that charge the immune system.
“The immune system works hard to kill virally infected cells but, in many cases, struggle to keep up and become depleted, leading to severe infection, worsening symptoms, hospitalizations, and even death,” Delaney said.
