Discovery and development of safe-in-man broad-spectrum antiviral agents

Petter I Andersen; Aleksandr Ianevski; Hilde Lysvand; Astra Vitkauskiene; Valentyn Oksenych; Magnar Bjørås; Kaidi Telling; Irja Lutsar; Uga Dumpis; Yasuhiko Irie; Tanel Tenson; Anu Kantele; Denis E Kainov

doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2020.02.018

Discovery and development of safe-in-man broad-spectrum antiviral agents

Int J Infect Dis. 2020 Apr:93:268-276. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.02.018. Epub 2020 Feb 17.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), 7028 Trondheim, Norway.
² Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lithuanian University of Health Science, 44307 Kaunas, Lithuania.
³ Institute of Technology, University of Tartu, 50090 Tartu, Estonia.
⁴ Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Tartu, Tartu 50411, Estonia.
⁵ Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Riga 1067, Latvia.
⁶ Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) and University of Helsinki, Helsinki 00290, Finland.
⁷ Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), 7028 Trondheim, Norway; Institute of Technology, University of Tartu, 50090 Tartu, Estonia; Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, FIMM, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. Electronic address: denis.kainov@ntnu.no.

Abstract

Viral diseases are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. Virus-specific vaccines and antiviral drugs are the most powerful tools to combat viral diseases. However, broad-spectrum antiviral agents (BSAAs, i.e. compounds targeting viruses belonging to two or more viral families) could provide additional protection of the general population from emerging and re-emerging viral diseases, reinforcing the arsenal of available antiviral options. Here, we review discovery and development of BSAAs and summarize the information on 120 safe-in-man agents in a freely accessible database (https://drugvirus.info/). Future and ongoing pre-clinical and clinical studies will increase the number of BSAAs, expand the spectrum of their indications, and identify drug combinations for treatment of emerging and re-emerging viral infections as well as co-infections.

Keywords: Antiviral drug; BSAAs; Broad-spectrum antiviral agents; Drug discovery and development; Virus.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Antiviral Agents* / therapeutic use
Drug Development*
Drug Discovery*
Humans
Virus Diseases / drug therapy

Substances

Antiviral Agents