Candidate: Antibody treatment for COVID-19
Type: Novel IgM and IgA antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 combining Atreca’s proprietary antibody discovery platform, IGM’s platform for developing and manufacturing engineered antibodies from identified sequences, and BeiGene’s global clinical development support.
Status: Atreca, BeiGene, and IGM Biosciences said April 29 they will partner to discover, develop, and manufacture novel IgM and IgA antibodies. The companies agreed to use Atreca’s platform, including Immune Repertoire Capture® (IRC™) technology, for generating bias- and error-corrected, natively paired heavy and light chain sequences of antibodies made by single plasmablast B cells isolated from blood obtained from acutely infected COVID-19 patients. The companies also agreed to apply IGM’s technology platform to develop and manufacture engineered IgM and IgA therapeutic antibodies from the identified sequences.
BeiGene agreed to provide global clinical development support by leveraging its more than 1,100-person global development team across China, the U.S., Europe, and Australia, as well as to lead global regulatory interactions for any potential drug candidate that is developed.
Atreca and IGM entered into a Material Transfer and Collaboration Agreement, and agreed to discuss further terms and arrangements with BeiGene in the future. Should the companies succeed in their research, manufacturing, and regulatory activities, they said, they believe an antibody may be ready to begin clinical testing in the first half of 2021.
COVID-19: 200 Candidates and Counting
To navigate through the >200 potential therapeutic and vaccine options for COVID-19, GEN has grouped the candidates into four broad categories based on their developmental and (where applicable) clinical progress:
● FRONT RUNNER – the most promising therapeutics/vaccines based on clinical progress, favorable data or both.
● DEFINITELY MAYBE – earlier phases with promising partners, or more advanced candidates in development that have generated uneven data.
● KEEPING AN EYE ON… – interesting technology, attracting notable partners, or both, but preliminary data.
● TOO SOON TO TELL – longshots pending additional experimental and/or clinical data.
GEN has also tagged the most common treatment types:
● ANTIVIRAL
● VAX
● ANTIBODY
● RNA
