Halifax Company On World Stage Advancing Covid-Fighting Drug

HALIFAX—A Halifax company has entered into a global partnership that will test, develop, and distribute a Covid-19-fighting drug across the world.

Appili Therapeutics is a locally grown pharmaceutical company specializing in drugs that fight infectious diseases. Since the pandemic began, it has been exploring how to use the antiviral drug favipirivir to fight Covid-19.

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Spurred by that research, the company hit the international stage last week when joined a consortium dedicated to advancing Avigan on the global market (Avigan is the brand name favipirivir is sold under).

The consortium includes the Indian multinational pharmaceutical company Dr. Reddy’s, as well as the Dubai-based Global Response Aid. Appili will play a key role in the consortium, drawing on its research prowess to design and run clinical trials of Avigan.

Dr. Armand Balboni is the CEO at Appili. He explains that small studies have suggested Avigan can be effective for fighting Covid-19 infection but that Appili’s Phase 2 research has the potential to provide more definitive answers.

“Everyone recognized that the Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies … in large enough size to definitively answer how and when to use Avigan for Covid 19 really were lacking,” Balboni says. “And I think folks recognized that what we were doing was going to tremendously help advancing for approval this product,” he says.

Stopping The Spread Of The Covid-19 Virus

If it’s proven effective in clinical trials, Avigan won’t be used as a vaccine against Covid-19. Instead, it will be used to stop the Covid-19 virus from spreading inside an infected person’s body.

Give it to someone early enough, Balboni says, and Avigan can confine the virus to a small number of cells, essentially stopping the infection in its tracks before it starts wreaking havoc on the body.

This means the drug could potentially be used both as an early-intervention treatment to keep a person’s Covid-19 infection from getting out of control and as a preventative measure to keep the virus from spreading from person to person.

Balboni explains: “You’re in a nursing home, for example, and your roommate tests positive for Covid-19. What we do is give [Avigan] to the person in the room who has not yet tested positive with the idea that you stop the chain of infection,” he says.

Appili is already running a trial testing that exact scenario in Ontario and is now coordinating other studies that will help the Avigan consortium get regulatory approval for the drug all over the world.

Studies in Japan and China have shown Avigan’s statistically significant effectiveness fighting Covid-19, but more trials are needed for regulatory approval. Balboni says he expects results from the Canadian study early next year.

Halifax On The Global Covid-19-Treatment Stage

Balboni says it’s a big deal for a small Halifax company to be on the world stage alongside pharmaceutical giants like Dr. Reddy’s, which has more than 20,000 employees around the globe.

“What we’re really able to do is play with these large, multinational companies as admittedly a small, public, Canadian biotech: we are on the world stage with these companies helping to develop this program by virtue of the value of the work that we’re doing,” he says.

This is important, he says, because Appili is a research company that’s not really set up to market and distribute a drug around the world.

“One thing we’re not particularly well adapted or set up to do is commercialize on our own,” he says. “And so, as part of the partnership, that’s not really our job. Our job is to continue to run the trials … and show that this works for Covid-19. That’s what we do best.”

He points out that Appili was researching Avigan long before Covid-19 hit, as a possible way to treat a rare tropical fever. The company started working on clinical trials before they had any kind of partnerships, taking on the risk themselves “because we thought it was the right thing to do.”

He said that attitude worked in the company’s favour as they were looking for partners and he’s happy to see others put their expertise towards bringing the drug to market.

“For us, this is really why we exist, and I think this is a validating partnership for our model of do good, do well,” he says.

Trevor Nichols is a reporter for Huddle in Halifax. Send him an e-mail with your story suggestions: [email protected].