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Inspyr Therapeutics: Can This High Potential Cancer Killing Biotech Repurpose Drugs to Help Fight COVID-19?
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Published: Mar 24, 2020 9:15 a.m. ET

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Mar 24, 2020 (Market News Bizz via Comtex) -- COVID-19 is a respiratory illness that can affect lungs and airways. It is caused by a virus called coronavirus. The outbreak started in Wuhan, China back in December 2019 and it is thought that the virus, like others of its kind, has come from animals.

As this new novel coronavirus (COVID-19) spreads throughout the US and rest of the world at an alarming pace, a drug that once raised the world's hopes is given a second shot. That drug is Gilead Sciences' Remdesivir, which has been front and center of most media headlines the past couple of weeks.


Remdesivir is an "analog," designed to mimic the appearance of one of the RNA letters, adenosine. It looks similar enough that the polymerase can unknowingly pick it up instead of the real adenosine and insert it into the strand of viral genome that's being constructed. The drug can inhibit coronaviruses as well as Ebola because their polymerases are similar enough that its cloak-and-dagger operation fools them all.

Taking a deeper look into the novel coronavirus COVID-19 currently plaguing the world with over 380,000 confirmed cases and over 16,500 deaths, COVID-19 typically causes flu-like symptoms including a fever and cough.

In some patients – particularly in the elderly and others with other chronic health conditions – these symptoms can develop into pneumonia, with chest tightness, chest pain, and shortness of breath.

It seems to start with a fever, followed by a dry cough. After a week, it can lead to shortness of breath, with about 20% of patients requiring hospital treatment.

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Notably, the COVID-19 viral infection rarely seems to cause a runny nose, sneezing, or sore throat (these symptoms have been observed in only about 5% of patients). Sore throat, sneezing, and stuffy nose are most often signs of the common cold.

80% of COVID-19 cases are mild

Based on all 72,314 cases of COVID-19 confirmed, suspected, and asymptomatic cases in China as of February 11, a paper by the Chinese CCDC released on February 17 and published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology has found that:

80.9% of infections are mild (with flu-like symptoms) and can recover at home.
13.8% are severe, developing severe diseases including pneumonia and shortness of breath.
4.7% as critical and can include: respiratory failure, septic shock, and multi-organ failure.
in about 2% of reported cases the virus is fatal.
Risk of death increases the older you are.
Relatively few cases are seen among children.
Pre-existing illnesses that put patients at higher risk:

chronic respiratory disease
cardiovascular disease
diabetes
hypertension
In addition to these stats, there are some otherwise healthy people who have seemed to develop a severe form of pneumonia after being infected by the coronavirus. The reason for this development is still being investigated as we try to learn more about this new coronavirus.


The following groups of people are advised to follow these measures if they are:

Aged 70 or older (regardless of medical conditions) and under the age of 70 with an underlying health condition listed below (ex. anyone instructed to get a flu jab as an adult each year on medical grounds):

chronic (long-term) respiratory diseases, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema or bronchitis
chronic heart disease, such as heart failure
chronic kidney disease
Although COVID-19 has similar symptoms to the flu, this seems be much more of a respiratory illness affecting the lungs and can have long-term effects even if a patient recovers from the virus.

Remdesivir may seem to have gotten a head start on COVID-19 treatments, there are numerous other efforts currently underway for treating Covid-19 (separate from current vaccine projects).

However, one promising company who can emerge in this young space to treat the coronavirus epidemic is Inspyr Therapeutics. Inspyr is an integrated clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is focused on developing targeted cancer therapeutics for the treatment of cancerous tumors, including breast, prostate, bladder, kidney, and lung cancer along with the development of novel therapies to treat cancer, inflammation, and other serious diseases.


With similar targeting of adenosine like Gilead's Remdesivir COVID-19 treatment, Inspyr merged with Lewis and Clark Pharmaceuticals several years ago and since then has developed a proprietary, industry-leading technology platform based on adenosine chemistry and biology and a broad pipeline of novel therapies. Their pipeline includes Mipsagargin, a dual A2A/A2B antagonist, an A2A antagonist, an A2B antagonist, and an A2A agonist.

As titans like Gilead look back to repurpose old drug therapies, it should be considered that Inspyr can and might already be in the process of doing the same thing. Having an industry-leading technology platform and targeted therapies to kill specific tumors with prodrug delivery, one would think they could pivot therapies to specifically target the coronavirus or certain effects of the virus on one's lungs.

Currently, there are more than 100 million Americans at higher risk for serious illness if they get COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation report.

In this report, they found that 105.5 million people in the U.S. are at high risk of serious illness if infected. Consisting of 29.2 million adults under the age of 60 who have another medical condition, and 76.3 million adults at least 60 and older.


One group that is particularly at risk is the 1.3 million people living in nursing homes.

The researchers defined “high-risk,” using the latest information from the CDC, as adults ages 60 and older, along with younger adults between ages 18 and 59 who have cancer, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or diabetes.

This is what Inspyr's prodrug delivery treatments help treat - lung cancer and even COPD, which is a chronic inflammatory lung disease that causes obstructed airflow from the lungs. Symptoms include breathing difficulty, cough, mucus (sputum) production and wheezing. These are the main problematic symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Adenosine A2A receptor agonists may be important regulators of inflammation. Such conclusions have come from studies demonstrating that, (i) adenosine A2A agonists exhibit anti-inflammatory properties in vitro and in vivo, (ii) selective A2A antagonists enhance inflammation in vivo and, (iii) knock outs of this receptor aggravate inflammation in a wide variety of in vivo models. Inflammation is a hallmark of asthma and COPD and adenosine has long been suggested to be involved in disease pathology.

Along with their pipeline therapies, more reasons to assume that Inspyr's quest to treat COVID-19 is from their recent company updates. Sabby Management, LLC and associated funds recently acquired a near 40% stake in Inspyr Therapeutics, Inc. that was disclosed to the SEC on 1/21/2020. This was just weeks after the novel coronavirus became larger news in China and risked becoming a global pandemic.


Sabby Management is also invested in AYTU Biosciences who has also made headlines for commercializing rapid tests for COVID-19. They currently have market cap of nearly $80 million. See more of Sabby Management's portfolio as they're behind many very successful companies.

Then, on 3/6/2020, Inspyr Therapeutics, Inc. filed an 8-K with the SEC in that the company sold an aggregate of $250,000 of senior convertible debentures ("Debentures") for cash to existing accredited institutional investors of the Company (the "Offering"). The original set conversion price was $0.33.

With the recent rise of news surrounding COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, companies working in the space such as Gilead Sciences has seen their stock's share price rise nearly 30% since January, 21, 2020. Adding over $20 Billion to their market cap.

This leaves good reason to speculate that Inspyr Therapeutics can prove to be a pivotal player in the race to provide treatments to 100s of millions of people that may require treatment just in the United States alone over the coming months (or maybe years). Their technology and long list of patents may leverage their value to secure partner deal with a top biotech company like Gilead, Roche, and others currently working on treatments and vaccines, or increasing the probability for an outright acquisition of Inspyr.


Also, to note, the intellectual property (IP) supporting Inspyr Therapeutics (formerly known as GenSpera) technology was developed over 15 years at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Copenhagen with over $15 million in scientific grants from the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, among others. Their IP portfolio contains several issued patents and along with several pending patent applications. As reported by Crunchbase, Inspyr Therapeutics has raised $22.8 million.

According to Inspyr's latest share price and filings, they have 11,383,983 outstanding shares and a market cap of about $30,000. For a company that has such promising therapies for cancer and potentially the treatment of COVID-19 symptoms, one would think this company is grossly undervalued.

You can learn more about Inspyr Therapeutics here: http://inspyrtherapeutics.com/

There are certain statements herein that may contain “forward-looking statements” as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We caution investors that there may be opinions and forward-looking statements herein and that these statements make no guarantees of future performance. The statements herein consist of opinions as of the date of this article and involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual outcomes to differ materially from what you might expect. Forward-looking statements in this article are opinions and apply only as of the date made, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Actual results could differ materially from current projections or implied results.

COMTEX_363769898/2633/2020-03-24T09:15:27