While almost all eyes are focused on vaccines against Covid-19, Protinhi Therapeutics is working on another cure for the pandemic: virus inhibitors. This significantly reduces the severity of the disease course and can prevent a future outbreak. However, there is one problem: the development is slower than hoped because of insufficient resources
The Nijmegen-based biotech company Protinhi has been working for a few years on virus inhibitors against tropical infectious diseases, such as dengue and the West Nile virus, which recently also occur in the Netherlands. “When Covid-19 showed up, we went straight into our substance library and started looking for compounds that could inhibit this virus,” says Bernd van Buuren, Protinhi’s CEO. “Together with knowledge institutes, we are investigating what works best against this virus and how we can prevent a future outbreak”.
Van Buuren received a final go from Health Holland for PanCoroNed last summer: a new collaboration between Radboud University in Nijmegen, Utrecht University, Leiden UMC, and the companies Avivia and Protinhi (both located at the Novio Tech Campus in Nijmegen) for the development of virus inhibitors against Covid-19. PanCoroNed is partly the result of the collaboration in the Health and High Tech ecosystem of Nijmegen.
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