Antiviral Therapeutics for Rapid Response Against Pandemic Infectious Diseases

The European Consortium "Antiviral Therapeutics for Rapid Response Against Pandemic Infectious Diseases" (AVITHRAPID) aims to support the search for novel broad-spectrum antiviral compounds by advancing multiple approaches. Building on a pre-existing set of bioactive small molecules, which are at least at the validated hit level, AVITHRAPID strives for the development of pre-clinical candidates targeting several viruses. This will be achieved by combining the relevant expertise for pre-clinical drug discovery, including molecular modeling, biochemical and cell-based assays, X-ray crystallography, medicinal chemistry, biophysical binding studies, ADMETox profiling, in vitro and in vivo PK, as well as animal disease models. In addition, the consortium aims to conduct a Phase 2a clinical trial for a small molecule developed against Zika virus. Moreover, the consortium aims to identify and validate further viral targets and thereby contribute to the search for novel antiviral targets. As a consequence of the activities in AVITHRAPID, an early-stage drug discovery pipeline will be established that can be used to rapidly identify and develop novel antiviral compounds against emerging diseases.