On Apr. 22, 2020, Pharnext and the University Hospital Institute Mediterranee Infection in France, announced a new joint effort dedicated to researching potential drug candidates for fighting COVID-19 virus.

The joint activities will focus on rapidly testing in vitro a number of already approved drugs that were previously identified by Pharnext as potential candidates for fighting COVID-19 using its PLEOTHERAPY(TM) AI platform. The testing will include several high priority drug combination candidates against the COVID-19 virus, also identified by Pharnext using its PLEOTHERAPY(TM) AI platform.

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (nCoV-2019) virus, a coronavirus like MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, which first emerged five months ago in Asia, and which has infected more than 2.3 million individuals and caused more than 160,000 deaths worldwide according to the latest World Health Organization report. As of today, there are no approved treatments against COVID-19 and vaccines are still in their early development.

Pharnext is an advanced clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics for orphan and common neurodegenerative diseases that currently lack curative and/or disease-modifying treatments. Pharnext has two lead products in clinical development. PXT3003 completed an international Phase 3 trial with positive topline results for the treatment of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A and benefits from orphan drug status in Europe and the United States. PXT864 has generated encouraging Phase 2 results in Alzheimer’s disease.

Pharnext has developed a new drug discovery paradigm based on big genomic data and artificial intelligence: PLEOTHERAPY(TM). Pharnext identifies and develops synergic combinations of drugs called PLEODRUG(TM). The Company was founded by renowned scientists and entrepreneurs, including Professor Daniel Cohen, pioneer in modern genomics, and is supported by a world-class scientific team.