North Jersey gets $108M to research COVID drugs

Executives said Tuesday that major research institutes headed by Hackensack Meridian Health's Nutley lab are partnering together to create novel COVID-19 medicines with government awards up to $108 million.

Virologists and drug makers are partnering to produce oral medications that don't need hospitalisation. Their objective is to be agile enough to adapt to a fast changing virus that may evolve into new varieties in weeks.

"The objective is to create and bring to market in real time the next generation of anti-viral drugs," said Dr. David Perlin, head of Hackensack Meridian's Centre for Discovery and Innovation labs.

The "Metropolitan AntiViral Drug Accelerator" programme is being developed as COVID spreads fast in the U.S. and New Jersey, although doctors are observing less severe sickness among the vaccinated.

Initial funds from the NIH and NIAID amount $65 million over three years, which might climb to $108 million if the programme is renewed for two more years.

The researchers will produce and test "small-molecule antiviral medicines" to target all coronaviruses, but especially COVID-19. Scientists say this finding might assist with future viral dangers.

Current monoclonal antibody therapy prevents catastrophic consequences. Hackensack Meridian and Bergen New Bridge hospitals seldom accept COVID patients and send them home with medicines.

Subvariants of omicron that are highly transmissible but less virulent are driving the spring surge.

Fewer than 50 people were on ventilators during Memorial Day weekend in New Jersey hospitals. After the first omicron wave in December and January, when 80 to 100 people died daily, the daily COVID death toll in New Jersey has remained in the single digits for over three months.

The Metropolitan AntiViral Drug Accelerator will concentrate on eight viral molecular characteristics important for reproduction, maturation, and immune-system evasion.

Five research have already started concentrating on viral targets and effective medicines.

Dr. Charles Rice of Rockefeller University, who will co-lead the initiative, said the alliances enable specialists in other fields to remove hurdles to medication development.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, and Aligos Therapeutics are also involved.

The Center for Discovery and Innovation at Hackensack Meridian's Nutley campus has 21 labs and 150 researchers.