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Drug makers are targeting flu virus vulnerabilities to develop antivirals that not only stop infections in their tracks, but also temper emergence of drug resistance.
Researchers from Janssen and Scripps have uncovered a small molecule that neutralizes influenza A group 1 viruses, the most common flu strains. Writing in Science (363, eaar6221, 2019), the team describes how they studied broadly neutralizing anti-hemagglutinin (HA) antibodies obtained from individuals protected by vaccination and used a large chemical library to identify small molecules with the same protective action as virus-blocking antibodies. A few anti-HA monoclonal antibodies are already in clinical development as passive immunotherapies to treat critical cases and the infections in the elderly in the event of an influenza pandemic. But drug makers continue to chase an antiviral pill that would work across different flu types and mitigate viral resistance, as well as being decidedly more practical.