Welsh Government Innovation is supporting Quay Pharmaceuticals Ltd to develop three innovative new products to address the Covid-19 pandemic.

For the first part of the project, Business Wales reports Quay Pharma aim to develop a prolonged action viricidal hand sanitiser, so that hands remain virus free over extended periods of time and so obviate the need for constant sanitiser reapplication.

The second part of the project is the development of a prolonged action viricidal nasal spray for use in the control of Covid-19. If the viruses are breathed in via the nose, then a significant number will be killed or inactivated by the viricide lodged in the nasal lining from the prolonged action nasal spray. This will result in a significant reduction of the viral load entering the throat, airways and lungs, therefore reducing the severity of the symptoms of the infection.

The final arm of the project is to use the same formulation strategies to develop a prolonged acting chewing gum for the killing of a significant amount of the coronaviruses breathed in via the mouth.

If successful, this has the potential to have a significant impact on Covid-19 in the short and longer term and also has benefits beyond Covid-19. It will also contribute to the company’s resilience and future growth with the creation of a large number of jobs in Wales and providing export opportunities worldwide.

Established eighteen years ago, Quay is an independent privately owned contract pharmaceuticals R&D and clinical trials manufacturing company based in Deeside. Over the past decade, Quay has successfully developed safe, robust and effective new products for more than one hundred and fifty clients across a spectrum of projects that range from hard to deliver new chemical entities to reformulations of established drugs. Quay has also carried out successful development of a wide range of generic medical devices and veterinary products.

Over the last few years and more recently, Quay Pharma’s specialist and acknowledged worldwide expertise in microbial biotherapeutics has also played a very crucial role in the development of experimental therapies with the potential to prevent and treat the complications from Covid-19. This is because Quay Pharma is the only CDMO (Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisation) licensed globally for the support of oral drug product manufacture utilising microbial therapies.