news

Drug candidate outperforms remdesivir as COVID-19 antiviral in cell assays

A compound called BOLD-100, which has shown efficacy against COVID-19 in pre-clinical trials, has now outperformed remdesivir in a cytopathic effect assay.

COVID-19

A new drug candidate that showed success at fighting COVID-19 infection in pre-clinical studies has been compared and tested against remdesivir, currently the only approved drug to treat the virus. Bold Therapeutics has released data on this drug candidate, BOLD-100, demonstrating that it is more effective as an antiviral against SARS-CoV-2 than remdesivir.

The two compounds were tested in a cytopathic effect assay against a live Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2 in Vero E6 cells. According to the researchers, consistent with prior experiments, BOLD-100 showed low nanomolar IC50 values, a magnitude lower than the IC50 values of remdesivir. 

BOLD-100 is a first-in-class ruthenium-based small molecule drug which selectively inhibits stress-induced upregulation of the chaperone protein GRP78. In viral infections, GRP78 plays a critical role in host recognition, viral entry and viral replication. 

 

Reserve your FREE place

 


Are you looking to optimise antibody leads in your drug discovery? Register for this webinar to find out how!

30 July 2025 | 10:00 AM BST | FREE Webinar

Join this webinar to hear from Dr. Lei Guo as she shares how early insights into liability, PK, stability, and manufacturability can help you optimise antibody leads in early drug discovery – and mitigate downstream risks later in development.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to assess key developability risks early
  • How in silico modelling and in vitro testing can be combined to predict CMC risks earlier in discovery stage
  • How micro-developability strategies are tailored for complex or novel formats

Don’t miss your chance to learn from real-world leaders

Register Now – It’s Free!

 

“Bold Therapeutics’ ongoing collaboration with some of the top virologists in Canada continues to produce independent data supporting BOLD-100 as a novel antiviral,” stated Mark Bazett, Bold Therapeutics’ Director of Preclinical Development. “Today’s data is particularly impressive, showing that BOLD-100 is substantially more potent as an antiviral than remdesivir, the only recently Health Canada approved treatment for COVID-19. The collective evidence on BOLD-100 supports further, rapid development of this novel treatment option to support patients with COVID-19.”

In an earlier Phase I dose-escalation study of 46 patients with advanced cancer, BOLD-100 was found to be safe and well-tolerated, potentially allowing the drug molecule to move immediately into Phase II trials in COVID-19. According to the company, these factors allow BOLD-100 to be developed and potentially approved as an anti-COVID-19 therapeutic in a relevant timeframe, rather than years from now.

More information can be found here

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *