In just 6 weeks Memo Therapeutics isolated Sars-CoV-2 virus-neutralizing antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients. The most potent of these antibodies will now undergo clinical development as a passive immunotherapy for COVID-19, with a clinical proof-of-concept anticipated for Q4 this year.
Since March, Memo Therapeutics (MTx) has selected the most promising donors from hundreds of Swiss COVID-19 patients. The selection criteria identified patients who had demonstrated a clinical course of COVID-19 indicative of a particularly potent antibody response.
Blood samples were collected from the clinically selected donors and used with MTx’s microfluidic DROPZYLLA discovery platform to identify SARS-CoV-2-neutralizing antibodies. DROPZYLLA enables the generation of complete recombinant human antibody repertoires, preserving all specificities present in each of the patient’s B cells.
By processing more than 2 million memory B cells from the COVID-19 donors, MTx was able to identify ultra-rare antibodies with superior virus-neutralizing activity within just six weeks of first patient enrollment. The most potent of these antibodies will now undergo clinical development as a passive immunotherapy for COVID-19, with a clinical proof-of-concept anticipated for Q4 this year.
Dr. Karsten Fischer, CEO of Memo Therapeutics (picture above), said: “The identification of SARS-CoV-2-neturalizing antibodies could be a game changer in how we tackle the global COVID-19 pandemic. The discovery process and ongoing clinical development may also provide key insights into how we can combat new mutants and viral outbreaks in the future, as well as other existing viral diseases.“
Dr. Christoph Esslinger, CSO of Memo Therapeutics, commented: “We are very excited by the opportunity to contribute to the global efforts against COVID-19. We are also extremely pleased to see that our DROPZYLLA antibody discovery platform and the established workflow appear to be perfectly suited for a rapid pandemic response, and we believe that patient-derived antibodies are the most straightforward, safe and reliable therapeutic option for such a situation.”
Relief Therapeutics announces progress too
More than ten companies in Switzerland are working on therapies in connection with COVID-19. This week, Relief Therapeutics also announced a major milestone. Relief and its U.S. partner, NeuroRx, Inc. last night announced that the first patients were treated with RLF-100 in a Phase 2b/3 clinical trial as a potential treatment for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) in COVID-19 patients on mechanical ventilation. RLF-100 is a patented formulation of Aviptadil, a synthetic human vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP), which targets alveolar type 2 cells in the lungs that could be the major target of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. VIP is known from animal models of lung injury and lung disease to inhibit inflammatory cytokines and to protect pulmonary epithelial cells that line the air sacs (alveolae) of the lungs.
(Press release / SK)
Pictire: Karsten Fischer / Memo Therapeutics
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