Immuron Ltd. (NASDAQ: IMRN) continued its winning streak on Tuesday after the company announced that its IMM-124E has demonstrated neutralizing activity against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19.
Normally, IMM-124E is used to manufacture the company’s flagship commercially available and over-the-counter gastrointestinal and digestive health immune supplements Travelan and Protectyn.
Overall, the preliminary data set Immuron has generated potentially offers a new oral therapeutic approach to target and directly inhibit the virus in the gastrointestinal tract and warrants further evaluation to identify the inhibitory substances in the company’s products, at least according to management.
In terms of the study, the in-vitro susceptibility of the virus to IMM-124E was determined using the quantitative assay that measures virus replication in the presence of increasing concentrations of the product compared to replication in the absence of the product. The effective concentration of IMM-124E was reported as the concentration of the product at which virus replication is inhibited by 50% or 90%.
Another major finding made during the study was that cell viability in the presence of IMM-124E was greatly enhanced when compared to placebo. IMM-124E improved cell viability by 180% to 260% relative to controls. These results indicate that IMM-124E at concentrations that inhibited SARSCoV-2 replication improved cell viability.
Looking forward, the company has filed a provisional patent application in respect of the findings.
Immuron stock closed Monday up over 63% at $10.41, in a 52-week range of $1.55 to $28.99. The consensus price target is $8.56. Following the announcement, the stock was up another 114% at $22.29 in early trading indications on Tuesday.
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