Abstract

Designing Engineered EVs for Virus X

Chris Baldwin, Chief Commercial Officer, Exopharm Ltd

SARS-CoV-2 has demonstrated that traditional pharmaceutical approaches to emerging viruses is insufficient for avoiding a global pandemic with catastrophic effects on the health and well-being of the world's populace. Existing anti-virals and symptomatic treatments have been insufficient for containing the virus while vaccines can be developed, tested, manufactured and distributed. Engineered extra-cellular vesicles (EEVs) offer a potential high-speed, precision medicine approach to addressing novel viruses. Exopharm’s Fortrexo approach is a method for a targeted anti-viral quickly following the sequencing of a new RNA virus. In this case, the spike protein is added to a vector based on the transmembrane portion of the VSVg virus. This provides the ability to replicate a virus’ tropism before its receptor target is identified. Additionally, RNAi’s (in this case siRNA’s) can be designed in silico to focusing on portions of the genome that appear the most conserved. By loading a number of RNAi’s into the EEVs, precision anti-virals candidates can be produced in parallel with in vitro and in vivo model development. This approach offers a highly accelerated pathway to a targeted treatment for an emerging pandemic.