NikZ providing hope for Valley Fever cure

The valley-fever vaccine delta-CPS1 is not the same as an antifungal valley-fever drug called Nikkomycin Z (NikZ).

Delta-CPS1 aims to prevent valley fever. NikZ aims to cure it.

NikZ was recently fast-tracked to market by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Clinical trials are set to begin this year.

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The drug’s development was started in the 1990s by a small company in California but halted when the business failed. The NikZ program was inactive until it was acquired by the University of Arizona in 2005. The UA has licensed development rights to a Tucson startup called Valley Fever Solutions Inc.

NikZ is the first of a new class of antifungal drugs that attack the formation of “chitin,” a major component of the fungal cell wall.

Given to mice with the valley-fever fungus, NikZ seemed to cure the infection.