Anti-Infectives

Infectious diseases are a scourge to humanity dating back to our prehistoric ancestors. In the last millennium (peaking between AD 1348 and AD 1350), the black plague – caused by the bacterium Yersiva pestis and exacerbated by poor sanitary conditions – devastated Europe, killing 30-60% of the population. Smallpox traced back to 1,000 BC in Egyptian mummies, was introduced to the Americas by Spanish conquistadors in the 15th century, where it decimated 80-90% of the Amerindian populations. Smallpox is thought to be responsible for 300-500 million deaths in the 20th century.

Early in the 20th century, another viral pathogen known as the Spanish flu rapidly killed 50 to 100 million globally, adversely impacting one of every five Americans, whose population only numbered 110 million.

We are still combating a viral pandemic in the form of HIV/AIDS, which first appeared in the 1980s. Currently, over 22 million people have died from AIDS and there are more than 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. There are no vaccines for preventing or treating HIV/AIDS. And, there are no commercially available drugs for treating HIV latency, i.e., eradicating or curing HIV.

Aphios is developing therapeutic drugs and vaccines for treating HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. Our lead therapeutic drug in development is:

• APH-0812, a combination therapy consisting of PKC modulators with or without HDAC inhibitors, designed to reactivate latent HIV reservoirs so that HIV can be eliminated by antiviral therapy and eradicated from the body.

Other anti-infective therapeutics, vaccines, and technologies being researched by Aphios include:

• APH-0202, an oral nanoformulation of betulinic acid that works as an HIV maturation inhibitor.
• nanoHYP™ which is a nanoformulation of a photosensitive molecule, and a chemiluminescent substrate that acts as a molecular flashlight to activate the photosensitive molecule to kill HIV inside the body.
• HIV/AIDS therapeutic vaccine based on an inactivated HIV virus using CFI technology.
• Vaccine adjuvant technology consisting of polymer nanospheres, using our proprietary and patented PNS technology. This technology can be utilized for HIV, influenza and anthrax vaccines.
• Asterias™, an anti-plaque compound, discovered from screening marine microorganisms against a suite of microbes responsible for gingivitis, caries and juvenile periodontitis.
• Marinus™, a marine molecule that is effective against MRSA, VRE, Anthracis bacillus and other Gram-positive microorganisms.
• APP-401, APP-069 and other anti-HIV lead isolated from screening over 10,000 marine microorganism fractions in cytoprotection and cytotoxicity assays.
• APP-0205, APP-309 and other anti-influenza lead isolated from screening over 1,000 marine microorganism fractions in cytoprotection and cytotoxicity assays.
• CFI is a pathogen inactivation technology that is purely physical and does not utilize chemicals, heat or irradiation. CFI can be used for clearing viruses from human plasma, plasma products and biologics such as monoclonal antibodies.