Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

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Cutting to the chase w/B-COVID peer review

Article
Brilacidin Demonstrates Inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 in
Cell Culture

Allison Bakovic 1, Kenneth Risner 1, Nishank Bhalla 1, Farhang Alem 1, Theresa L. Chang 2, Warren K. Weston 3,
Jane A. Harness 3 and Aarthi Narayanan 1,*

1 National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases, George Mason University,
Manassas, VA 20110, USA; [e-mail] (A.B.); [e-mail] (K.R.);
[e-mail] (N.B.); [e-mail] (F.A.)
2 Public Health Research Institute, Rutgers, New Jersey Medical School, the State University of New Jersey,
Newark, NJ 07103, USA; [e-mail]
3 Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc., Wakefield, MA 01880, USA; [e-mail] (W.K.W.);
[e-mail] (J.A.H.)
* Correspondence: [e-mail]; Tel.: [phone]

From Section 4 last paragraph (Discussion) Page 11 of 14

In this manuscript, we demonstrate brilacidin exhibits robust inhibition of SARSCoV-2 in Vero cells and Calu-3 cells, and in two strains of the virus. Likely to function as
a viral entry inhibitor [73-75], the proposed mechanism of action for brilacidin includes
affecting the integrity of the viral membrane and interfering with viral entry. Brilacidin
also exhibited an excellent synergistic inhibitory profile against SARS-CoV-2 in combination with remdesivir. Destabilizing viral integrity is a desirable antiviral property, especially in relation to pan-coronavirus agents, as the viral membrane is highly conserved
and similar in construct across different coronavirus strains. Further research will be conducted in the context of other lethal coronaviruses (MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV) toward assessing the potential of brilacidin as a broad-spectrum inhibitor of coronaviruses.

https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/viruses/viruses-13-00271/article_deploy/viruses-13-00271.pdf

Special thanks to DrBones for posting the link.