NanoViricides Inc. (NNVC)

[changes_iv]

Thank you for relaying the words, from the "good doctor" Seymour, to the forum. I found the following, which I had to look-up to better understand the content of his message:

From our patent attorney in response to your question about similarity. "No problem with this patent. They don't have the alternating hydrophilic/hydrophobic structure of Anil's polymer, but rather a single hydrophobic polymer chain. Almost the opposite, actually, since they have pendant hydrophilic chains, while the NNVC product has pendant hydrophobic chains. It could be a competing product if it were to work in vivo, but polystyrene is not something you want in the body -- clearing it from the bloodstream would be very problematic. They seem to recognize this in the patent, where they propose using it externally or in the digestive tract." ~ EUGENE SEYMOUR, MD, MPH, Chief Executive Officer
NANOVIRICIDES, INC

From another source:

...polymer backbones bearing hydrophobic pendant groups is a fairly recent development...for drug delivery applications, it is important to appreciate that the conversion of the poly(L-lysine) into vesicles reduces its cytotoxicity, this potentially allowing this molecule to be exploited as a pharmaceutical excipient*. ~ Polymers in Drug Delivery edited by Ijeoma F. Uchegbu, Andreas G. Schatzlein

*An excipient --- is generally a pharmacologically inactive substance formulated with the active ingredient ("API") of a medication. Excipients are commonly used to bulk up formulations that contain potent active ingredients (thus often referred to as "bulking agents," "fillers," or "diluents"), to allow convenient and accurate dispensation of a drug substance when producing a dosage form. They also can serve various therapeutic-enhancing purposes, such as facilitating drug absorption or solubility, or other pharmacokinetic considerations.

In Dr. Diwan's own words:

“We have developed a small chemical ligand that mimics both the mammalian (or a-2,6-) and avian (or a-2,3) forms of the native sialic acid receptor of influenza viruses. We can design a nanoviricide to exhibit several ligands at a single point, and each nanomicelle may exhibit several hundred ligands on its small surface. The ligands are designed to look very much like (mimic) the sialic acid to the influenza viruses, and the high density of the ligands would force the virus to land onto the nanoviricide and get destroyed by the hidden ‘tails’ of the nanomicelle that snap out and merge into the viral surface lipid coat.” ~ Dr. Anil Diwan, PhD, President and Chairman of NanoViricides, Inc.