 Shares of small-cap Moleculin Biotech Inc. soared 43 in premarket trade Tuesday, after the company said a second round of laboratory testing confirmed antiviral activity for WP1122, its candidate as a treatment for COVID-19. The lab involved was IIT Research Institute, an affiliate of the Illinois Institute of Technology, which conducted additional in vitro testing of the drug candidate. The testing involved a cell viability assay in the VERO E6 cell line infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and compared the therapeutic effects of 2-DG the active ingredient in WP1122 alone with those of WP1122, a 2-DG prodrug.The result is very preliminary; based on feedback from the FDA, Moleculin expects it will need to show activity in a COVID-19 animal model to successfully submit a request for Investigational New Drug IND status for WP1122. The company is testing other compounds in its portfolio as treatments for COVID-19. Shares have gained 20 in the year to date, 