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Finally - something that works against common cold
September 26, 1998 08:31 AM
By Mark Egan
LOS ANGELES, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Biotech company Agouron Pharmaceuticals AGPH reported early results on Saturday for a drug it hopes will eventually offer a cure for the common cold.
The experimental drug stopped the growth of the virus that causes the common cold in test tubes. Agouron now expects to start clinical trials on humans before the end of the year.
Even if the drug proves to be a cure for the cold, it will take years of study before it gets government approval and hits the market.
The most frequent cause of the common cold is the human rhinovirus (HRV). Scientists at Agouron have unraveled the structure of the virus and found an enzyme called 3C protease that is responsible for the growth and spread of the virus through the body.
The drug, called AG7088, inactivates the 3C protease enzyme, stopping the spread of the virus.
Researchers tested 46 of the more than 100 known HRVs and found the drug effective against them all.
"We tested this compound against 46 different HRV types and we found that every single one of them was inhibited by the compound," Agouron's Dr. Amy Patick said in a telephone interview.
Patick reported her findings at the American Society for Microbiology's Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in San Diego.
While for most people the common cold is little more than a short-lived nuisance, for some with low immune systems or underlying respiratory problems, contracting a cold can cause serious illness or even death.
Agouron's drug is the latest in a long line of attempts to cure the common cold. One of the problems with finding a cure for the cold is that there are so many HRVs. It is hard to find anything that will vaccinate against them all.
While there are many varieties of HRVs, most have the 3C protease enzyme, which is why Agouron thinks its new drug will help against all colds.
By targeting this enzyme, Agouron is taking a novel approach. Most of the previous failed attempts attacked proteins on the outside of the virus. But 3C protease is on the inside.
"The 3C protease enzyme is a necessity for the virus to replicate and ... the 3C protease enzymes in all HRVs are very much alike," Patick said.
Many potential cures developed over the years failed because they were only effective during a certain part of the virus' spread, while Agouron's approach had the potential to treat a cold at any stage in its development, Patick said.
"We want to be able to use this drug before patients get infected with the virus and we would like to use it after the patients becomes infected," she said.
As the virus that causes the common cold is found only in humans and chimpanzees, the drug will move directly to human testing later this year as the first step toward getting approval.
Although many drugs in the laboratory have appeared to offer the elusive cure for the common cold only to fail when tested in humans, Patick remains optimistic.
"We have a long way to go," she said. "We have to test in humans and any development pathway can be very complicated, but we're taking the plunge and I'm optimistic."
REUTERS
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