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

Andersen PI, Ianevski A, Lysvand H, et al. Discovery and development of safe-in-man broad-spectrum antiviral agents. Int J Infect Dis. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.02.018

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 general population from emerging and re-emerging viral diseases reinforcing the arsenal of available antiviral options. Here, we reviewed discovery and development of BSAAs and summarized the information on 119 safe-in-man agents in freely accessible database (https://drugvirus.info/). Future and ongoing pre-clinical and clinical studies will increase the number of BSAAs, expand spectrum of their indications, and identify drug combinations for treatment of emerging and re-emerging viral infections as well as co-infections.