Foundation for Neglected Disease Research (FNDR) and DevsHealth, CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, have announced the start of a collaborative project to develop new broad-spectrum antiviral agents for infections caused by flaviviruses such as dengue, Zika, West Nile virus, and Japanese encephalitis, among others.

Flaviviruses belong to the Flaviviridae family of viruses and cause more than 400 million human infections per year. Most cases are mild infections with self-limiting febrile episodes, but some infections cause severe and life-threatening disease with symptoms such as haemorrhagic fever, encephalitis, paralysis, or hepatic failure, among others. Most of the disease burden is in low- and middle-income countries, and despite these pathologies being mild infections, the high morbidity generates a huge economic impact. Climate change is also affecting global disease distribution, and an increase in flavivirus infection cases has been seen in Europe and North America.

This collaboration has the potential to revolutionize the way flavivirus infections are treated. There are currently no drugs available to patients to treat these infections. The new treatments will not only be effective against multiple flaviviruses but will also, thanks to this international collaboration be affordable and accessible to patients who need them.

This new project will allow DevsHealth, a DeepTech company working on anti-infectious drug development using AI, real-world data and molecular modelling, to join forces with FNDR, a non-profit organization with expertise in drug discovery for infectious and neglected diseases, and work directly in one of the territories where flavivirus infections have a high socio-economic impact. The mix of FNDR’s capabilities in infectious diseases research together with the DeepTech platform from DevsHealth will allow the consortium to accelerate the discovery of new broad-spectrum agents for flaviviruses. DevsHealth will be in charge of in silico studies and chemistry efforts and the FNDR will manage all in vitro and in vivo experiments.

According to Alfons Nonell-Canals, CEO of DevsHealth, “this partnership will allow us to work on a high social impact project by using our technology to improve people’s health as well as to facilitate access to medicines, especially in LMICs”. This objective is aligned with the FNDR’s mission, which is explained by Dr. Shridhar Narayanan, CEO of the FNDR, “This collaboration with DevsHealth allows us to combine the power of AI/ML technologies with FNDR’s in vitro and in vivo capabilities to accelerate the discovery and development of a broad spectrum antiviral drug for mosquito-borne neglected diseases”.