NanoViricides Hires Vice President of Research and Development; Dr. Diwan Addresses Shareholder Questions Regarding Anti-H5N1 Vaccines and Anti-viral Treatments
Business Wire - January 31, 2006 08:32
WEST HAVEN, Conn., Jan 31, 2006 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- NanoViricides, Inc. (Pink Sheets: NNVC) today announced that Dr. Jayant Tatake has joined the company as its Vice President of Research and Development.
Dr. Tatake holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Bombay University, Bombay, India, a premier university in the chemical sciences. His most recent position was Assistant Director, Analytical Chemistry at Interpharm Inc. His expertise includes Organic and Polymer Chemistry, development of multi-step chemical syntheses, and processes for the scaling up to large-scale manufacturing. He is also the author of numerous scientific journal articles.
Dr. Eugene Seymour, Chief Executive Officer of NanoViricides, Inc said, "Dr. Tatake is the brightest chemist I've ever interviewed. Fortunately for us, his understanding of the technology convinced him to join the company. His knowledge about scalability will be extremely helpful to us. He is an important addition to the scientific team at NanoViricides."
The Company President, Dr. Anil Diwan, has received many inquiries from its shareholders questioning the vaccines and other therapeutic treatments that are being developed by other companies for H5N1 and he responded:
"The history of H5N1, as well as that for human influenza, suggests that the vaccines that provide 100% protection against the strain for which they were developed, will provide between 60% to 80% protection the following year yet diminish every year, requiring constant new vaccine development.
Total vaccination (i.e. 300 million doses for US alone, and 5 billion doses for the entire world) is required for a vaccine approach to be effective. This is unlikely to be accomplished.
Vaccines alone cannot control Bird Flu (H5N1) and other highly pathogenic influenza organisms from wreaking worldwide havoc. It is also necessary to develop specific, targeted anti-viral therapeutic agents such as AviFluCide-I(TM) to help both contain outbreaks as well as treat those patients who have not received a prior vaccination.
The world's scientists expect that H5N1 will continue to mutate and become more transmissible and less virulent over time. This means fatality rate (currently 60%-80%) will decrease some, but number of cases will rise sharply.
Given the mutations and antigenic drift, because of which vaccines will always have limited effectiveness in control, new treatments such as ours, will be essential.
To our knowledge, NanoViricides is currently the only company that is developing drugs specifically against H5N1 itself although there may be efforts afoot at many pharmaceutical companies that are still unknown to us."
ABOUT NANOVIRICIDES, INC.
NanoViricides, Inc. is a development stage company that is creating special purpose nanomaterials for anti-viral therapy. A nanoviricide(TM) is a specially designed, flexible, nanomaterial with or without an encapsulated active pharmaceutical ingredient and a targeting ligand to a specific type of virus, like a guided missile.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectation regarding future events. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Actual events could differ materially and substantially from those projected herein and depend on a number of factors including the success of the Company's research and development strategy, the availability of adequate financing, the successful and timely completion of clinical studies and the uncertainties related to the regulatory process.
SOURCE: NanoViricides, Inc.
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