Hemispherx’s Five Ebola Research Collaborations

Hemispherx Biopharma (Philadelphia, PA) has announced a  set of research collaborations designed to develop “therapeutic cocktails against Ebola which may potentially overcome the emergence of drug resistance due to Ebola virus mutation”.

Hemispherx’s platform drugs, Alferon N and Ampligen, the company reports, “have certain unique structural attributes and developmental histories which suggest potential incremental value with respect to inclusion in various Ebola therapeutic cocktails under development”.  Both drugs have mechanisms of action that are multifaceted by working through cellular “molecular cascades” rather than target viral targets. And both drugs are effective against highly virulent viruses such as SARS.

The five integrated Ebola-based collaborations are with 1) National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID); 2) the United States Army Research Institute in Infectious Disease (USAMRIID); 3) the Swiss Department of Defense (Spiez Lab); 4) research being conducted at Howard University, Washington, DC; and 5) a US-based facility with biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) capabilities.

In the projected experiments, Hemispherx and its collaborators will study Ebola viral isolates in various experimental systems with various other drug candidates.

According to the World Health Organization, 2,622 people died in the Ebola epidemic between March 2014 and September 18, 2014.