Bold Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing BOLD-100, a first-in-class oncology and antiviral therapeutic, is announcing robust preclinical efficacy data against a wide range of COVID-19 variants. New in vitro research completed by Bold Therapeutics’ collaborators at the University of British Columbia and Western University showed that BOLD-100 consistently reduced viral concentrations in multiple COVID-19 variants, including the highly prevalent B.1.1.7 variant originally identified in the UK (see Figure 1). This work confirms and expands upon prior research demonstrating that BOLD-100 has strong antiviral activity against COVID-19 in a range of preclinical in vitro models. Bold Therapeutics continues to advance BOLD-100 as a versatile therapeutic to improve outcomes in COVID-19 patients.
Unlike vaccines, which are specific to a particular viral strain, BOLD-100’s broad antiviral mechanism-of-action appears to be unaffected by viral mutations. BOLD-100 selectively inhibits stress-induced upregulation of GRP78, a master chaperone protein that plays a critical role in viral replication. GRP78 has been identified in more than 200 academic articles as a potentially attractive antiviral target.
