Novak Djokovic’s Covid ‘cure’ company torn to shreds

Scientists have rubbished the Covid “cure” company that unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic and his wife own an 80 per cent share in.

It was revealed earlier this week the Serbian world No. 1 purchased a majority stake in Danish biotech company QuantBioRes, which is trying to develop a treatment against Covid-19.

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The company is aiming to develop a peptide that prevents the virus from infecting human cells — a treatment, not a vaccine.

They aim to launch clinical trials in the UK later this year.

Darren Saunders, an associate professor of medicine at the University of New South Wales, says the inclusion of “Quant” in the name “is a massive red flag” and the company’s website is a “word salad”.

“Oh dear. I’ve had a quick look at this company,” he tweeted.

“‘Biotech’ might be a stretch. The second red flag is the liberal sprinkling of words like ‘resonant’ and ‘frequencies’ through the word salad on that site.

“Let’s just park the false statement that coronaviruses are retroviruses for now. So, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Novak’s ‘biotech company’ is working on homeopathy as a cure for Covid.

“I’ve read the ‘discover more’ section about their innovative technology (I highly recommend against this), here are a few choice quotes …

“‘During this rapid research effort, we will identify the common component of proteins responsible for initial infection for all related RNA viruses and then design a vaccine based on this component and thus create the cure’.”

Saunders suggested athletes and other potential investors should “not blow their cash on this stuff”.

Prof Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician from the Australian National University, had similar criticisms of the company’s website, including that it used “fancy terms” that were not supported by science.

“They’ve given nothing in the way of data,” he told The Guardian.

“People are looking out for new molecules all the time, but the website describes a way of finding a new molecule without providing any evidence of success.”

Thomas Lumley, a professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland, tweeted that he also discovered problems when he looked through the QuantBioRes site.

“If you got to the firm’s website and click on ‘Discover More’ under ‘Our Innovative Technology’, you find a document titled ‘Rapid development of treatment for retro-viruses incl. COVID-19’. This isn’t just phrasing, it later says ‘Coronaviruses are retroviruses’. They aren’t,” Prof Lumley tweeted.

Danish scientist Hiren Joshi, from the University of Copenhagen, took to social media to share his findings about the company.

“This looks like a great investment by a tennis player who has, without a doubt displayed a pattern of excellent decision making recently,” he wrote sarcastically on Twitter.

QuantBioRes Ceo Ivan Loncarevic rejected the idea that what his company is aiming to achieve is “homeopathy”.

“What we do has absolutely nothing to do with homeopathy,” he said. “The theory behind homeopathy is that you can transfer information from a chemical to another substance, such as water. What we do is to develop peptides with specific functionality. This is pure, classical science.”

Novak Djokovic’s beliefs in natural healing powers are nothing new. He delayed elbow surgery in 2017 to see if his injury would heal itself without an operation before ultimately deciding to go under the knife in 2018.

But in his book the 34-year-old revealed he cried for three days because he had gone against his beliefs.

“Every time I thought about what I did, I felt like I had failed myself,” he said.

New York Times tennis writer Ben Rothenberg wrote that Djokovic had been “wildly anti-science” over the years.

“I think that Djokovic’s health opinions and views are probably a part of this; he has been sceptical about a vaccine,” he told OTB Sports.

“He has brought all kinds of weird pseudoscience people on his channels, bringing on all kinds of strange gurus to talk about changing water with positive thinking and things like that.”

In response to the QuantBioRes news this week, Serbian tennis journalist Sasa Ozmo tweeted “who saw this coming” with a laughing emoji.

Djokovic has refused to get vaccinated against Covid and was deported from Australia after the Federal Court upheld Immigration Minister Alex Hawke’s decision to cancel his visa.

The minister argued if Djokovic remained in Australia he risked inciting anti-vaccination sentiment in the country.

The Serbian superstar has been a hot topic at Melbourne Park even though he’s been barred from competing at this year’s Australian Open.

On Wednesday two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka called for the WTA to enforce a harder stance on Covid-19 vaccines following Djokovic’s highly-publicised deportation.

Speaking to reporters after her straight sets victory over Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann, the former world No. 1 threw her support behind a vaccine mandate, suggesting the Djokovic saga could have been avoided if the governing bodies removed any grey areas and enforced a “no jab, no play” policy.

“From my standpoint, it has been very clear,” she said.

“I believe in science. I believe in getting vaccinated. That is what I did for myself. I don’t want to push my beliefs onto everybody else however, we are playing a global sport that are travelling around the world.”