Cocrystal Pharma jumps as antivirals effective against Omicron in lab studies

Cocrystal Pharma

22/12/2021 13:23

** Shares of antiviral drug developer Cocrystal Pharma
 COCP.O  rise nearly 14% to $0.82 premarket
    ** Company says in vitro studies show its oral and
intranasal COVID-19 drug candidates exhibit antiviral activity
against the Omicron variant  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nGNX1FBvsH
    ** Says it confirmed the activity of the drugs after
analysing all reported Omicron variant sequences, including
those from South Africa, Europe, Asia and North America
    ** COCP says it expects to initiate Phase 1 clinical studies
with its intranasal drug CDI-45205 and an oral COVID-19
treatment as rapidly as possible
    ** The experimental drugs belong to the same class of
treatments as Pfizer's  PFE.N  COVID-19 antiviral drug,
Paxlovid, and are designed to block a key enzyme needed by the
virus to multiply
    ** COCP says it had earlier confirmed the drugs'
effectiveness against previously identified variants including
Delta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma
    ** Stock had fallen 47.4% YTD, up to the last close

 (Reporting by Amruta Khandekar)
 ((Amruta.Khandekar@thomsonreuters.com;))