3rd Annual MAVDA Meeting at CDI Showcases Program Success with Three Drug Candidates in Pipeline, More Antivirals to Come

The Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) hosted the third annual meeting for the Metropolitan AntiViral Drug Accelerator (MAVDA), a federally-funded national consortium of academia and pharma focused on discovering new antiviral drugs against pandemic viruses, on Jan. 24.

The meeting shared groundbreaking updates highlighting the consortium’s rapid progress. In a remarkable achievement, three promising drug candidates are on track for development in little over two years — a timeline that typically spans a decade for a single drug candidate to reach clinical trials.

MAVDA’s impressive output include 14 patents, and 11 high-impact publications in major scientific journals. These results come from the collective efforts of 12 innovative research projects, composed of more than 200 scientists across academia and industry, who have been working tirelessly since the consortium launched in Spring 2022 through a prestigious federal award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

MAVDA is not only accelerating the search for effective therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) but is also geared towards deepening our understanding of other viruses of pandemic potential and identifying novel viral targets. The consortium is focused on developing broad-spectrum antiviral drugs that can help us stay prepared for future pandemics.

“The best drugs come from the best science,” said David Perlin, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of the CDI.

The meeting brought together researchers from MAVDA’s partner institutions, including world-class virologists and drug development experts from the CDI, Rockefeller University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Yale University, Rutgers University, University of California San Diego, University of Arizona, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. MAVDA is co-led by Dr. Perlin and 2020 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Charles M. Rice, Ph.D., and collaborates with top commercial antiviral drug developing partners such as Merck, the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute (Tri-I TDI), and Aligos Therapeutics.

The investigators from each institution shared updates on their projects and results, engaging in discussions with their peers. Members of the MAVDA Scientific Advisory Board were also in attendance. Emilio Emini, Ph.D., a member of the MAVDA Scientific Advisory Board, noted: “Over the past three years, MAVDA has not only driven significant scientific progress but has also created a collaborative research ecosystem that has enabled breakthroughs that would not have been possible otherwise.”

The three projects further along in drug development were featured at the beginning of the day-long meeting. Julian Symons, D.Phil, the chief scientific officer of Aligos Therapeutics, shared the latest on the 3CLPro inhibitor, which completed Phase I clinical trials. Dr. Perlin provided an update on a lead drug candidate also targeting the same 3CLPro protease that was co-developed with Merck, as well as a promising follow-on compound. Thomas Tuschl, Ph.D., of Rockefeller University, presented progress on a highly promising drug candidate which targets a completely novel viral mechanism, recently published in Nature.

Other updates included progress on three additional drug projects and four ongoing developmental research projects. The meeting also featured a poster presentation session showcasing scientific, pharma-style cores presented by core directors, along with three mentored research projects.

Since its 2022 inception, MAVDA’s mission has been to discover, optimize and test innovative small molecule antiviral drugs to target coronaviruses (CoVs), emphasizing SARS-CoV-2, and one or more select RNA viruses with pandemic potential. The goal is to rapidly develop drugs which can be given orally, and in an outpatient setting, in the near future.

MAVDA is powered by a three-year, $65 million grant from the NIH and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID). MAVDA is one among the nine national Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern program funded by the NIAID, and involves world-class institutions in the New Jersey-New York metropolitan area, and beyond.

For more information about MAVDA’s science, including their drug targets, visit the consortium’s website.