An acute respiratory distress syndrome drug development collaboration stimulated by the Virginia Drug Discovery Consortium.

The genesis of most older medicinal agents has generally been empirical. During the past one and a half centuries, at least in the Western countries, discovering and developing drugs has been primarily the domain of pharmaceutical companies largely built upon concepts emerging from organic chemistry. Public sector funding for the discovery of new therapeutics has more recently stimulated local, national, and international groups to band together and focus on new human disease targets and novel treatment approaches. This Perspective describes one contemporary example of a newly formed collaboration that was simulated by a regional drug discovery consortium. University of Virginia, Old Dominion University, and a university spinout company, KeViRx, Inc., partnered under a NIH Small Business Innovation Research grant, to produce potential therapeutics for acute respiratory distress syndrome resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

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Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Competing Interest John S. Lazo is a co-inventor of intellectual property concerning phosphatase inhibitors that has been assigned to the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh. John S. Lazo is co-founder of KeViRx, Inc., which has licensed the patented JMS-053 technology for further development. John S. Lazo is the Chief Scientific Officer of KeViRx, Inc. and has equity in the company.