5 February 2020 - - US-based biopharmaceutical company Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s (NASDAQ: LGND) proprietary technologies are being utilised by partners to support and enable potential treatments for the 2019 novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, that originated in Wuhan, China, Ligand said.

Technologies that have shown potential or general applicability in the antiviral or therapeutic antibody areas include Ligand's Captisol, OmniAb and LTP (Liver-Targeted Prodrug) platforms.

Ligand partner Gilead Sciences' Captisol-enabled remdesivir (GS-5734) was highlighted in the New England Journal of Medicine last week for treating the first case of 2019 novel coronavirus in the United States.

Gilead Sciences said that while there are no antiviral data for remdesivir that show activity against 2019-nCoV at this time, there are available data in other coronaviruses. Remdesivir is not yet licensed or approved anywhere globally and has not been demonstrated to be safe or effective for any use.

Plans are being developed by current and/or prospective partners to use Ligand's OmniAb antibody discovery platform as well as Ligand's patented antigen technology for the discovery of antibodies to coronavirus, with inbound interest specific to OmniChicken.

Antibodies have been shown to potentially treat a variety of viral-mediated diseases, including those caused by coronaviruses.

Published literature shows that Ligand's Liver-Targeting Prodrug technology offers a potential new generation of nucleotide antiviral agents.2 An example of this is development progress by Nucorion Pharmaceuticals' NCO-1010.

Nucorion is a venture-funded biotechnology company focused on developing anticancer and antiviral agents targeting diseases of the liver, initially directed to China.

Ligand entered into a multi-programme LTP technology licensing agreement with Nucorion in 2016.

Nucorion closed a series B financing in 2019 led by Guangdong Ji-Bao Pharmaceutical company of Guangzhou, China.

Captisol is a patent-protected, chemically modified cyclodextrin with a structure designed to optimize the solubility and stability of drugs.

Captisol was invented and initially developed by scientists in the laboratories of Dr. Valentino Stella, University Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas' Higuchi Biosciences Center for specific use in drug development and formulation.

This unique technology has enabled several FDA-approved products, including Amgen's Kyprolis, Baxter International's Nexterone, Acrotech Biopharma L.L.C.'s and CASI Pharmaceuticals' Evomela, Melinta Therapeutics' Baxdela and Sage Therapeutics' Zulresso.

There are many Captisol-enabled products currently in various stages of development.

OmniAb is a three-species transgenic-animal platform consisting of five different technologies used for producing mono- and bispecific human therapeutic antibodies. OmniRat animals comprise the industry's first human monoclonal antibody technology based on rats.

Because they have a complete immune system with a diverse antibody repertoire, OmniRat animals generate antibodies with human idiotypes as effectively as wild-type animals make rat antibodies. OmniMouse is a transgenic mouse that complements OmniRat and expands epitope coverage.

OmniFlic is an engineered rat with a fixed light chain for development of bispecific, fully human antibodies. OmniChicken animals comprise the industry's first human monoclonal antibody technology based on chickens.

The OmniClic chicken is specifically developed to facilitate the generation of bispecific antibodies and retains the ability to generate diverse, high-quality affinity matured antibodies.

All five types of the OmniAb therapeutic human antibody platform OmniRat, OmniFlic, OmniMouse, OmniChicken and OmniClic use patented technology, have broad freedom to operate, produce highly diversified, fully human antibody repertoires optimised in vivo for immunogenicity, manufacturability and therapeutic efficacy, and deliver fully human antibodies with high affinity, specificity, expression, solubility and stability Naturally Optimized Human Antibodies.

Ligand's LTP is a novel prodrug technology platform designed to selectively deliver a range of active pharmaceutical agents to the liver. It works by chemically modifying a biologically active molecule into an inactive prodrug that will be administered and later activated in the liver by certain enzymes mainly expressed in the liver.

The technology can be used to improve activity and/or safety of an existing drug, or to develop new agents to treat liver diseases or diseases caused by homeostasis imbalance of circulating biomolecules controlled by the liver such as lipids and glucose; LTP is especially applicable to metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.

Ligand's LTP technology has expanded chemical class applicability and also removes certain by-products as compared to other targeting technologies.