Virongy Expands Focus Beyond HIV and COVID-19
Virongy, a Virginia biotech company, intends to expand their scope beyond their HIV and COVID-19 research. With millions of people being afflicted by viral illnesses worldwide each year, Virongy’s objective addresses an ever-increasing market need.
“Our goal is to create advanced diagnostics so that doctors can promptly prescribe treatments to patients,” said Brian Hetrick, chief scientific officer of Virongy.
The company already made striking advancements in HIV and COVID-19 research through the development of virological reagents and tools. These developments include:
- HIV Rev-dependent Lentiviral Vector
- Able to selectively express therapeutic genes only in HIV-infected cells, providing the potential to develop therapeutic vaccines to target HIV reservoirs
- HIV Rev-dependent Reporter Cells
- State-of-the-art HIV-indicator cells. The incredibly high specificity and accuracy in quantifying HIV infection improves anti-HIV drug screening, antibody screening, and anti-HIV compound screening.
- Ha-CoV-2 and Ha-CoV-2 Variants
- Ha-CoV-2 represents a major technology advancement in the development of SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses, and serves as platforms for rapid and robust quantification of neutralizing antibodies, viral mutants, and antiviral drugs.
To support this growing scope of focus, Virongy has moved to a 1,600 sq ft bioscience lab within the new Northern Virginia Bioscience Center. Next steps include obtaining Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certification in order to open a GMP lab. The certification ensures that all products produced in the lab are safe and effective, as well as expedites the FDA approval process for any products the company intends to bring to market. Virongy anticipates having GMP certification within the next several months.
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