The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) https://www.niaid.nih.gov, within NIH, has awarded about $577 million to establish nine Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic concern.
The AViDD centers will conduct innovative, multidisciplinary research to develop candidate COVID-19 antivirals, especially those that can be taken in an outpatient setting plus antivirals targeting specific viral families with high potential to cause a future pandemic.
AViDD recipients include funding to help the University of Texas Medical Branch and Novartis work together to discover drugs to fight off the next pandemic. The partnership received $56 million from NIAID, referred to as the UTMB Novartis Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness (UNAPP). The partnership is going to focus on three major classes of viruses with pandemic potential.
The partnership will look at validated drug targets as well as phenotypic screening. This will make it possible to discover clinical drug candidates as well as new targets that will advance the fundamental understanding of the biology of viruses.
Also, Scripps Research was awarded $67 million from NIAID to lead a new pandemic preparedness center to focus on developing antiviral drugs. The Center will be known as the Center for Antiviral Medicines and Pandemic Preparedness (CAMPP).
CAMPP efforts will include the discovery and development of next generation drugs to combat coronaviruses and other viruses with pandemic potential by targeting known target and exploring new paradigms.
The CAMPP portfolio includes later stage programs that are expected to move through Investigational New Drug (IND) to do studies and clinical development over the course of the funding period, as well as highly innovative, early stage drugs. Over the award period, the Center will build multidisciplinary research capabilities that can be rapidly refocused in a new pandemic situation.
Additional AViDD award recipients are:
- University of California, San Francisco
- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Stanford University School of Medicine
- Emory University and Georgia State University
- Hackensack University Medical Center
- University of Minnesota
- Sloan Kettering Institute and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
According to NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, MD., “The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for new antiviral drugs, especially those that could easily be taken by patients at home while their symptoms are still mild. Decades of prior research on the structure and vulnerabilities of coronaviruses greatly accelerated our response to the pandemic, and we hope that similar research focused on antivirals will better prepare us for the next pandemic.”
Go to https://www.niaid.nih.gov for more information on the projects.