Collaborative Community against Coronavirus, 3C

In the face of COVID-19 and rapidly emerging viral pandemics, the traditional commercial approach to antiviral translational research has proven unlikely to produce appropriate therapeutics in a timely manner. Consequently, the Drug Discovery Group (DDG) within the UCL Translational Research Office (based at the SoP), has acknowledged an urgent need to prepare a strategic resource, openly available to the research community, to stimulate research into new antivirals for emerging viruses. This resource will promote improved collaborative opportunities between research teams in Low-Middle (LMIC) and High Income countries and, in an emergency situation, provide a source of compounds for expedited preclinical testing prior to human testing.

The DDG has redeployed their experience in discovering inhibitors for other viruses in response to the current pandemic, leading the team to establish several target-based approaches to inhibition of viral replication. This has been done in collaboration with researchers at Oxford and Monash universities. To be ultimately successful, this response will need to be informed and enabled by commercial insights. To that end, the TRO Drug Discovery Group were co-founders of a not-for-profit company (Collaborative Community against Coronavirus, 3C) in April this year, focused on the discovery of new treatments of emergent coronavirus infections. This company is driven by a team of founders with wide experience of antiviral drug discovery from fund raising and discovery through to launch. Using philanthropic donations, the company has initiated antiviral screening on contract at KU Leuven. 

The 3C team includes experts in antiviral drug discovery, such as Dr Richard Angell, UCL TRO Drug Discovery Group, who featured in Episode 7 of the recent UCL Podcast, 'Coronavirus: The Whole Story', to discuss the promising future of antivirals. The wider UCL network adds further to UCL capabilities. Virology Research Services (founded by Dr Michela Mazzon) is a recently established SME based at LMCB, and is developing cellular models of viral replication that will be key to development of compounds. Also, Dr Claire Smith (Institute of Child Health) has developed important in vitro models of viral infection (and COVID-19 in particular) using patient tissue.

““Work is at an early stage but we are excited to be able to place our experience at the centre of this important challenge.” – Dr Richard Angell, Principal Investigator, DDG