Cocrystal Pharma's (COCP) SARS-CoV-2 3CL Protease Lead CDI-45205 Demonstrates Broad-Spectrum Activity Against the SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Gamma Variants

Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: COCP) (“Cocrystal” or the “Company”) announces that its SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease lead CDI-45205 and several analogs showed potent in vitro activity against the SARS-CoV-2 Delta (India/B.1.617.2) and Gamma (Brazil/P.1) variants. Cocrystal previously announced that CDI-45205 and analogs exhibited broad-spectrum activity against the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha (United Kingdom/B.1.1.7) and Beta (South African/B.1.351) variants, surpassing the activity observed with the Wuhan strain.

“These in vitro SARS-CoV-2 results further indicate that Cocrystal’s SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease inhibitor CDI-45205 may be an effective treatment for COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 and its emerging variants, including the fast-spreading Delta variant that is becoming the dominant COVID-19 variant globally,” said Sam Lee, Ph.D., Cocrystal’s President and interim co-CEO. “The broad-spectrum activity against these SARS-CoV-2 variants is highly encouraging as CDI-45205 previously demonstrated excellent in vivo efficacy in a MERS-CoV-2 infected animal model.”

“CDI-45205 has now shown antiviral activity in preclinical testing against SARS-CoV-2 and all four major variants,” said James Martin, CFO and interim co-CEO, “Our next steps are to scale-up synthesis and manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) to support Investigational New Drug (IND)-enabling studies to advance CDI-45205 into clinical trials.”

The Company continues to develop SARS-CoV-2 oral protease inhibitors and replication inhibitors using its proprietary drug discovery platform technology. Cocrystal’s approach to drug discovery provides a unique path for designing broad-spectrum coronavirus antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 and emerging variants.

About CDI-45205 Cocrystal announced agreements in February and April 2020 with Kansas State University Research Foundation (KSURF) for certain proprietary broad-spectrum CL3 antiviral compounds for the treatment of norovirus and coronavirus infections. In December 2020 Cocrystal announced the selection of CDI-45205 as its lead coronavirus development candidate from a group of protease inhibitors obtained under the KSURF agreements. CDI-45205 showed good bioavailability in mouse and rat pharmacokinetic studies via intraperitoneal injection, and also no cytotoxicity against a variety of human cell lines. CDI-45205 has also demonstrated a strong synergistic effect with remdesivir. Additionally, a proof-of-concept animal study demonstrated that daily injection of CDI-45205 exhibited favorable in vivo efficacy in MERS-CoV-infected mice. Cocrystal has obtained promising preliminary pharmacokinetic results and is continuing to evaluate CDI-45205.

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