VANCOUVER, BC – TheNewswire - July 22, 2021 - AREV NANOTEC BRANDS INC. (CSE:AREV) (CNSX:AREV.CN) (OTC:AREVF) (“AREV” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the Company’s RUTF product development premise has been validated.

Recent data presented this week on the co-intersection of HIV and nutrition at the 11th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2021), held virtually with a hub in Berlin, demonstrates the need for innovation in the universal address of famine, starvation, malnutrition, and food insecurity in the treatment of HIV and AIDS.

Two scientific presentations definitively report increased disease progression in patient populations lacking access to efficacious therapeutic nutritional support and show the correlation between this failing and the undermining of antiretroviral therapy to suppress viral reproduction. Patterns of drug resistance occur when malabsorption of therapeutics is accentuated by food insecurity in vulnerable patient populations, which have been successfully addressed by interventions being developed by AREV’s human nutrition product line.  Both SUS-TAINN™, an advanced stage Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), and AREV’s enteral formula are being designed to meet the precise clinical nutritional needs of the patient populations at greatest risk for the development of Serious Acute Malnutrition (SAM).

At the IAS Conference on HIV Science, University of Cincinnati and Florida International University researchers presented a study demonstrating that persistent immune activation was associated with chronic food insecurity and malnutrition. Titled “Food insecurity is associated with increased immune activation in people living with HIV”, this study demonstrated compelling data establishing the biological link between malnutrition and chronic disease in HIV populations. The research further showed immune activation remained consistent in relationship to food insecurity, which is characteristic of immune dysfunction in patients challenged by viral infections.

In the second poster presented by University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researchers, Expected impact of malnutrition on first-line antiretroviral drug exposure in a global population of children in countries with highest child mortality: a quantitative modelling and simulation study, data on three antiretrovirals from 30 countries, designated recipient nations by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), demonstrated underexposure of first-line antiretrovirals is attributable to malnutrition and results in a decline in therapeutic efficacy.

Chad Johnson, Esq., member of the IAS, the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), and the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS), and special counsel to AREV, stated, “This new data demonstrates the clear mandate that more funding for RUTFs for HIV patients in PEPFAR-designated nations experiencing food insecurity is an immediate priority for ensuring effective responses to pandemics that have implications for global stability and security. Leadership at all levels is facing questions of accountability to resolve this heinous circumstance that is predicted by the WHO to account for unprecedented numbers of deaths due to famine.”

AREV’s flagship product, SUS-TAINN™, is a competitive, next generation RUTF being designed for patient populations suffering from SAM and starvation, clinically referred to as inanition, as characterized by World Health Organization (WHO) and US Aid for International Development (USAID) during famine and accounts for disease progression and heightened death rates in the millions of people each year. SUS-TAINN will address the clinical need for delivery of enhanced nutrition that addresses both gut permeability and gut microbiome decimation while providing delivery of essential calories and micronutrients that influence the course of predictable disease progression. SUS-TAINN™ is being designed to meet public health procurement requirements for international aid agencies as currently defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, World Food Program (WFP), and President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief ($50 million grant in 28 designated countries).

Dr. Roscoe Moore DVM, MPH, PhD, Former US Assistant Surgeon General (retired), member of the Board of Advisors to the Institute of Human Virology and a Fellow of the Potomac Institute, and Chairman of AREV’s Scientific Advisory Board, commented, “The current disparities in addressing global public health by leading procurement agencies, to ensure that adequate address of human nutrition, requires immediate action to preserve contemporary advances in the treatment of HIV for the most vulnerable of key populations.”

Current legislative efforts to address global famine include enhancement of multi-sectoral nutrition strategies that have leveraged more than $18.5 billion in country-level research-driven programs by the U.S. Department of State. Recent United Nations reports demonstrate that greater than 690 million people are severely undernourished, further exacerbated by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. WFP Executive Director Davis Beasley has announced that the world will need $4.9 billion to prevent 30 million deaths this calendar year alone due to starvation.

Dr. Jay Noller, Professor Emeritus of Agriculture at Oregon State University, and a member of the AREV’s Scientific Advisory Board, observes that “research presented at IAS provides compelling findings that the efficacy of antiretroviral therapies (ART) in a global cohort of young children is only as good as their baseline nutritional status, wherein two-thirds of all children under ART begin their sprint to better health from a hole as deep as their state of malnutrition. Without addressing the nutritional state of those suffering acute malnutrition, HIV therapy may be of no use to them. It is clear to me that we absolutely must create a better means of therapeutically improving the nutritional status of two-thirds of children in the world also suffering from HIV/AIDS.”

The IAS Conference on HIV Science is the world’s leading meeting on HIV and AIDS science and clinical studies and generates directions in AIDS policy development that includes access to essential therapeutics for the estimated 36 million people infected with HIV. IAS 2021 includes presentations from leading doctors, scientists, activists and scholars in relevant areas of virology and immunology, and clinical research generated by industry and publicly sponsored research networks around the world. The conference can be found at www.ias2021.org.

About AREV NanoTec Brands Inc.

AREV is an early-stage life science discovery enterprise dedicated to delivering solutions to public health through discovery, collaborations in the life science industry, and pathogen remediation. AREV is invested in commercial innovations in phytomedicinal discoveries of small molecule antivirals and for related neglected chronic co-morbidities and innovations human nutrition including the late-stage development of a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and an Enteral Formula targeting the long-term effects of chronic infection. AREV is dedicated to designing and delivering innovation in rational drug design, driven by presenting global epidemiological characteristics of multiple challenges to international human and animal health. AREV is a member of both BIOTECanada and The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).

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