In Mo Khan’s words human metapneumovirus (hMPV) is a nasty virus and one that hopefully his company hVIVO will, by the end of 2024, have harnessed enough data about to allow its client to create a vaccine.
hMPV is fairly common. Most adults catch it, few show symptoms and those that do present typical cold-like symptoms including runny nose, headaches and fever. “It becomes really kind of problematic for young infants, the elderly and people who have asthma,” says Khan. “In those cases it can cause severe symptoms; in some cases result in hospitalisation ultimately causing pneumonia. One of the doctors recently termed it as the most important virus that people have not heard of.”
hVIVO plc (formerly Open Orphan plc) is a rapidly growing specialist contract research organisation (CRO) and the world leader in testing infectious and respiratory disease vaccines and antivirals using human challenge clinical trials, providing end-to-end early clinical development services for its broad and long-standing client base of biopharma companies.
