As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, scientists and other medical professionals are scrambling to fight the disease. With that in mind, a Georgia-based research team recently formed Bio Extraction Sciences LLC seeking to use a gum-based matrix — which is what it sounds like, gum– to act as a preventative treatment for the coronavirus.
Its novel approach uses a combination of quinine with carbon in a time-released gum matrix to hopefully remove/reduce the infectious aspects of COVID-19 through chewing this gum carbon filtration system.
Atlanta biotech lawyer and CEO Preston Haliburton and Chief Science Officer Dr. McCoy Moretz, the company’s co-founders, saw the opportunity to utilize an existing treatment they had worked with, Breathalyzer toxin-removal gum and powder, to help fight coronavirus. The gum helps remove toxins from the mouth and throat, one of the primary ways that it enters the human body. When combined with medicine use to fight the virus, such as chloroquine or quinine, two anti-malarial drugs, the hope is that the gum can help eliminate viral loads that may have found their way into the mouth and throat.
The team is in pre-publication of a clinical study demonstrating the product’s efficacy to be performed soon at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. They hope that if the study bears out their hypothesis, the gum could be used as an extra level of protection to help Americans as they continue to battle the virus.
“This is an over 100-year-old natural malarial treatment from which the current drug is derived,” Moretz says. “Our innovation in extraction, absorption and delivery system will hopefully benefit the public, not just during these trying times but for years to come.”
Team member Dr. K. Scott Malone, a practicing physician, former military medical officer and biomedical engineer, says “I am excited to be involved with Bio Extraction due to the company’s potential to impact health-related conditions. The Bio Extraction delivery system is designed to diminish bacterial and possibly viral loads in the oral cavity. The COVID-19 pandemic is a major example of how this product could possibly impact the patients.”
