International Journal of Infectious Diseases (Apr 2020)

Discovery and development of safe-in-man broad-spectrum antiviral agents

  • Petter I. Andersen,
  • Aleksandr Ianevski,
  • Hilde Lysvand,
  • Astra Vitkauskiene,
  • Valentyn Oksenych,
  • Magnar Bjørås,
  • Kaidi Telling,
  • Irja Lutsar,
  • Uga Dumpis,
  • Yasuhiko Irie,
  • Tanel Tenson,
  • Anu Kantele,
  • Denis E. Kainov

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 93
pp. 268 – 276

Abstract

Read online

Viral diseases are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. Virus-specific vaccines and antiviral drugs are the most powerful tools to combat viral diseases. However, broad-spectrum antiviral agents (BSAAs, i.e. compounds targeting viruses belonging to two or more viral families) could provide additional protection of the general population from emerging and re-emerging viral diseases, reinforcing the arsenal of available antiviral options. Here, we review discovery and development of BSAAs and summarize the information on 120 safe-in-man agents in a freely accessible database (https://drugvirus.info/). Future and ongoing pre-clinical and clinical studies will increase the number of BSAAs, expand the spectrum of their indications, and identify drug combinations for treatment of emerging and re-emerging viral infections as well as co-infections. Keywords: Virus, Antiviral drug, Drug discovery and development, Broad-spectrum antiviral agents, BSAAs