Vyripharm and Regis Sign Off on a Master Drug Program Agreement

Vyripharm Biopharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Vyripharm Enterprises, LLC, located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, TX, has signed off on a Master Drug Program Agreement with Regis Technologies, a contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) in Morton Grove, IL. The agreement allows Vyripharm to further develop its antiviral diagnostic agents to first-in-human studies of viral infections such as SARS, MERS and COVID-19.

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the pharmaceutical and medical industry is working around the clock to develop treatments, vaccines and accurate in-vitro testing applications of the viral infection. While two therapeutic agents, remdesivir and plaquenil, biologically have demonstrated mild disease control in very severe symptomatic patients there still remains a need for developing treatment for the larger patient population as well as a vaccine to ultimately control widespread transmission.

Furthermore, an overlooked need is the ability to accurately diagnose and evaluate the severity of the disease. Like many diseases, there appears to be varying COVID-19 patient profiles, where predictability of symptomatic response or clinical indications based on profiles have yet to be determined. Vyripharm seeks to apply its platform technology to address in-vivo human diagnostic antiviral imaging agents for the evaluation and treatment outcomes.

Vyripharm has redirected efforts with its platform technology towards diagnostic intervention of viral infections. Vyripharm’s drug platform technology includes an anti-viral (VYR-2020) and a CB1 antagonist (VYR-206) that integrates nuclear medicine imaging and diagnostic applications. Vyripharm’s technology has the potential to provide early onset diagnosis, infection monitoring, severity evaluation and ultimately treatment outcomes of COVID-19.

Regis is scaling up Vyripharm’s drug candidates, VYR-2020 and VYR-206, for process research, preclinical (animal studies) and clinical (first-in-humans).