Docosanol

Docosanol is a saturated fatty alcoholused traditionally as an emollient, emulsifier, and thickener in cosmetics, nutritional supplement (as an individual entity and also as a constituent of polyicosanol). It works by inhibiting fusion between the human cell plasma membrane and the herpes simplex virus (HSV) envelope, thereby preventing viral entry into cells and subsequent viral replication. Unlike other cold-sore antivirals, docosanol does not act directly on the virus, and as such it is unlikely it will produce drug resistant mutants of HSV. The ED50 of 1-docosanol is around 2.5 mg/ml for plaque inhibition and 1.7 mg/ml for inhibition of virus production for wild-type and Acv-resistant HSV-2.