InvisiShield Technologies, which is developing a human antibody nasal spray designed to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection, has announced the appointment of Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology founding director Warner C. Greene as President and Chief Scientific Officer. Greene will continue in his role at Gladstone Institutes, where he is Senior Investigator, Director of the Michael Hulton Center for HIV Cure Research, and Nick and Sue Hellmann Distinguished Professor.
IS101 (formerly InvisiMask) was originally developed by Eureka Therapeutics, which shares a CEO with InvisiShield. According to InvisiShield, the nasal spray “binds SARS-CoV-2 and has a proprietary nasal retention technology. It has the capacity to both ‘capture and kill’ all major current and potential future SARS-CoV-2 variants in the nasal cavity, the primary entry point of infection.” The company says that a 200 ug dose of the nasal spray has been shown to protect mice against infection for more than 10 hours when exposed to a high viral load.
Greene commented, “My goal is to bring our intranasal preventive spray for SARS-CoV-2 to people faster. The current vaccines, while protecting from hospitalization, no longer provide durable protection from infection with the hyper-transmissible, immunoevasive variants now dominating the COVID landscape. Transmission chains remain intact and all those infected are at risk of developing Long COVID. InvisiShield’s nasal spray is developed with a proprietary nasal retention technology that preserves its time in the nasopharynx, providing an extended period of protection. Because of its construction, InvisiShield’s SARS-CoV-2 preventive is predicted to be active against all current and future viral variants. We envision that our product can help prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection in unvaccinated individuals, people with waning immunity, immunocompromised people, and persons in higher risk situations such as on planes, cruise ships, at sporting events, or children in school.”
InvisiShield and Eureka CEO Cheng Liu said, “We are very pleased that Dr. Greene will take on his new role at InvisiShield as the company continues its momentum and further advances its broadly enabling platform in preventing COVID as well as other respiratory infections.”
Read the InvisiShield Technologies press release.
