Cocrystal Pharma, a Seattle-area company co-founded by a Nobel Prize winner and backed by biotech veterans, is taking aim at high-profile viruses.
The publicly traded company has the green light from regulators for an early-stage clinical trial testing its experimental treatment for COVID-19 and norovirus. It is also finalizing plans for a phase 2 influenza trial of a separate treatment, after pivoting away from an earlier program for hepatitis C virus.
Cocrystal develops “broad spectrum” compounds active against multiple viruses by targeting their replication machinery. The proprietary approach builds on a technique called x-ray crystallography to assess how compounds bind to viral components at the molecular level, enabling Cocrystal to generate a lot of leads for potential drugs.