10026891Development of a broad spectrum respiratory antiviral treatmentClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKViruses causing both major and minor respiratory infections are a major societal burden both in terms of deaths and loss of productivity in the public workforce. The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for broad spectrum antiviral treatments that can be used against current and future viruses that both cause major and minor respiratory infections. OVO are developing a new respiratory antiviral platform that can be used against all respiratory viruses and can be quickly adapted to for new and emerging threats. This is through the use of defective interfering particles (DIPs). DIPs are formed when viruses copy their genomes and introduce errors resulting in erroneous, defective copies. Not only are these defective genomes no longer able to cause infections, but a proportion of these have properties enabling them to act as natural inhibitors of viruses. They are able block replication of an infectious virus. Under certain conditions these defective copies can completely stop viral infection. They are therefore naturally occuring therapeutics which are self replicating. OVO Biomanufacturing are exploiting the inhibitory characteristics of these defective genomes to create a treatment for use against all viruses that cause respiratory infection. This project will build proof-of-concept data showing the effectiveness of this therapeutic against all major viruses causing respiratory infection.