RTP biotech company gets $47M federal contract for potential COVID-19 treatment
Research Triangle Park-based BioCryst Pharmaceuticals said Tuesday that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) had awarded the company an additional $47 million in contracts to further the development of its potential COVID-19 treatment.
The money comes in the form of a new $44 million contract from NIAID, which is led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the addition of $3 million to a previous contract. The contracts will help the company complete ongoing clinical trials of its experimental treatment in Brazil.
Those trials are investigating whether the company’s yellow fever treatment, named galidesivir, is effective against COVID-19.
Previously, BioCryst told The News & Observer that the antiviral treatment had shown some activity against a number of different viruses, including the coronavirus strains that cause SARS and MERS.
Jon Stonehouse, the CEO of BioCryst, said the contracts will help it advance the drug through additional trials outside of the hospital space and “accelerate our manufacturing activities to increase drug supply.”
“We appreciate the financial investment the government continues to make in the galidesivir program,” Stonehouse said in a statement. “We believe broad-spectrum antivirals, like galidesivir, are critical to combat both the current COVID-19 pandemic and threats from future viruses.”
The company is holding the clinical trials in Brazil because it already had a trial in place there to monitor galidesivir’s use as a yellow fever treatment.
However, Brazil has also become one of the largest hot spots in the world for COVID-19. The South American country has reported more than 3.9 million cases —the second most COVID-19 cases in the world, trailing only the U.S. — according to a tracker kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Several companies in the Triangle have landed federal contracts in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Most notably, Morrisville-based Fujifilm Diosynth is manufacturing a potential vaccine for the biotech company Novavax, which was awarded $1.6 billion from the federal government as part of an effort to speed up coronavirus vaccine development.
Other Triangle companies, like Raleigh’s RedHill Biopharma, are also creating potential treatments for COVID-19.
BioCryst has one previous drug approved the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use. That drug, RAPIVAB, treats acute uncomplicated influenza in patients ages 2 and up.
The company has 140 employees, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company had $138 million in cash on hand at the end of 2019, its federal filings showed.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate