Technology

Monoclonal antibodies are increasingly being introduced as immunotherapeutic treatments against cancer and viral infections. Whilst they can have immunomodulatory abilities, in viral infections (e.g. HIV, HBV, HBC, and Ebola) they are mainly being used as neutralising agents due to their ability to bind viral surface antigens required for entry into the host cell. Antiviral mABs can directly blunt viral propagation and, in some cases, engage the host’s immune system leading to long lasting protective vaccine like effects. Herein, antibody (B-cell) cross reactivity was investigated against coronaviruses to generate a panel of broadly cross reactive human monoclonal antibodies for therapy 12 human monoclonal antibodies have been identified that are specific to the cross reactive epitopes between coronaviruses SARS and MERS 4 of the 12 demonstrate strong neutralising activities against SARS and MERS in virus assays

Applications

No effective treatment or vaccine is available for human CoV infections including the COVID-19. Therefore, the development of CoV bnMAB based immunotherapies for the highly pathogenic CoVs will address an immediate unmet medical need and could prove a rapid treatment not only for current SARS-CoV-2 but also for future emerging pandemic CoV.

Benefits

• 'Universal' coronavirus broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (CoV-bnMAB)
• CoV-bnMAB would serve as effective therapeutic tools against emerging pandemic CoV.

Intellectual Property

This technology is subject of a Priority patent application.

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