All molecules currently in Viscount’s pipeline emerge from the same technology platform. This platform is a combination of chemical design methods directed at modification of nucleosides and nucleotides - building blocks of DNA. Such modifications target specific enzymes, viral or human, and inhibit their activity by disrupting normal course of enzyme’s operation. These modifications are partially achieved through phosphonation process, adding phosphonate to a nucleoside analogue molecule. Phosphonation of certain nucleosides creates molecules with new biological properties.

These properties enable much greater selectivity towards viral enzymes of replication such as reverse transcriptase (RT) therefore evolving drug candidates almost always cause less toxicity than their non-phosphonated nucleoside counterparts. These phosphonated molecules can deliver similar, and in certain cases improved, antiviral activity. The result is the creation of new class of potentially less harmful and more efficient antiviral and anticancer drugs.

The proprietary phosphonation process was originally developed by pioneer in this field late Dr. Krayevsky in the Engelhard Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow in early 1990s. Dr. Krayevsky was the lead inventor of Phosphonovir - our main antiviral drug.