Johnson & Johnson's dengue antiviral drug shows positive results

Around November, the ICMR sought the drug regulator's nod for phase-3 trials of a vaccine candidate it developed with drugmakers SII and Panacea Biotec

Novel anti-viral drug developed by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) arm Janssen Pharmaceutical provides “strong protection” against dengue in non-human primates and mice, early stage clinical data published in ‘Nature’ journal has revealed.

“The first-in-class antiviral, which was shown to be safe and well tolerated in a phase 1 first-in-human clinical study, is progressing into Phase 2 clinical studies for the prevention and treatment of dengue,” the company said on Thursday.

The new data indicated that the investigational candidate JNJ-1802 is effective against all four of the dengue serotypes in mice and provides strong protection against two tested serotypes in non-human