Broad-Spectrum Antivirals for Pandemic Protection

Do broad-spectrum antivirals exist, are they effective, and what are the barriers to their development?

On March 21, 2024, the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Dame Angela McLean, chaired a roundtable discussion with a list of esteemed scientists from around the world to answer these three questions.

A summary of key points from the roundtable was recently published and they make for an interesting read. (It’s not long, you can read it in full here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/broad-spectrum-antivirals/broad-spectrum-antivirals)

Key takeaways included a number of observations that align closely with Kimer Med’s own views, including:

• Novel viruses have the potential to cause pandemics in the future.
• Broad-spectrum antivirals are an attractive option as a potentially ready-made response to a new threat.

(As I do like to remind people, vaccines will not be ready and waiting for the next pandemic – but antivirals can be.)

They also note that, “Antivirals can be deployed in different ways depending on their properties: pre-exposure prophylaxis (which could be used in outbreak control), post-exposure (to prevent or reduce severity of infection), or to treat disease.

In other words, effective antivirals are going to be VITAL to protect frontline health and border workers, treat infections, limit the spread of an outbreak, and save millions of lives.

But we need to develop them NOW – BEFORE the next pandemic occurs, and we have let our foot off the gas in this regard.

The panel looked at the current global pipeline for antiviral agents and found a lack of coordination, a lack of priority and a lack of funding to be key challenges.

As far as priority virus targets go, it was noteworthy that “single-stranded RNA viruses are the highest priority as they are responsible for the majority (around 80%) of the global viral disease burden.”

Many of Kimer Med’s successful antiviral results are against single-stranded RNA viruses, including:

• Dengue virus (all 4 serotypes)
• Zika virus
• Influenza A virus
• Rhinovirus
• Coronavirus 229E

Another one of the interesting points made was that, “Awareness is low among political leaders and the public of the value of therapeutics during a pandemic, in addition to vaccines.”

This is something Kimer Med has tried to address, by reaching out directly to political leaders in New Zealand. We will continue to try and facilitate discussion and education in this space.