Our compound libraries are comprised of rationally designed molecules that include diverse nucleoside analogs and nucleoside mimetics that can achieve high selectivity in the specific interference with pathogen replication.  Our molecules aim to provide highly selective, efficacious, and safe treatments for serious infectious diseases that are associated with severe morbidity and deaths. 

Selective antiviral nucleoside analogs as a class have ideal properties of convenient administration, high efficacy, broad spectrum activity, high barrier to resistance, high storage stability and long shelf life that make them ideal for the management of rare and emerging tropical diseases and viruses with pandemic potential. 

Riboscience combines unique specialist chemistry expertise with state-of-the-art structural biology approaches and the identification of novel protein targets to create new classes of cancer fighting drugs, which are more potent and less toxic than traditional chemotherapy and that can overcome immune tolerance and enable anti-cancer immunity. 

Irrespective of the particular disease they may cause, all viruses must replicate in order to survive. Drugs that block viral replication, by mimicking the naturally occurring components of RNA or DNA (A,T/U,C,G), are called nucleoside analogs. Nucleoside analogs have three major advantages over other viral inhibitors, which make them the preferred treatment for all infectious diseases for which they are currently available (e.g., HIV, HBV, HCV, HSV, CMV):

• High barrier to resistance

• Broad spectrum of activity

• High efficacy

Their high barrier to resistance correlates with the typically low affinity binding of nucleosides to their target. Their broad spectrum of activity is the result of targeting the viral polymerase active site, which is highly conserved across different viral strains. Their high efficacy is the result of modifying the viral polymerase product – the viral genome – rather than blocking the viral polymerase itself. As nucleoside analogs are incorporated into new viral genomes, they result in defective genomes. In the process, the nucleoside analogs typically have thousands of chances to compromise any single new given viral genome, resulting in their high efficacy. 

Watch the video below to see a nucleoside analog in action.