Antibody treatment trials to prepare for possible second wave in winter
It is hoped it will help protect the old and vulnerable from the disease.
Human trials of a new antibody treatment are set to begin in preparation for a second wave of coronavirus later in the year.
British drugmaker AstraZeneca plans to test an ‘infusion of antibodies’ on 30 people next month in hopes it will protect the old and vulnerable from the disease.
The treatment, described by Government scientists as ‘very exciting’, is designed for people who conventional vaccines don’t work for with very weak immune systems.
It works by recreating the body’s natural disease-fighting substances in a lab and injecting them into people, reports MailOnline.
It would be suitable for those on chemotherapy and immunosuppressant drugs, or elderly patients who naturally struggle to fight off infections.
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If successful the treatment will be trialled on thousands of people later in the year, in preparation for a feared second wave of Covid-19.
Cambridge-based AstraZeneca, which has already partnered with Oxford University to work on developing a separate vaccine, says the antibody treatment could protect people from catching the infection for six months.
Sir Mene Pangalos, who is in charge of pharmaceutical discovery research at AstraZeneca, said: ‘There’s a population who are elderly that [may not] get a particularly good immune response to the [conventional] vaccine.
‘In those instances you might want to prophylactically treat those patients with an antibody to give them additional protection.
‘We’re going to do this as fast as we can. Obviously we’ve got to show that you’re safe but antibodies are well known entities — it should be safe.’
Conventional vaccines prompt the body to produce its own antibodies to protect them from the real infection, but elderly people develop less potent antibodies than young people.
The therapy can also be used on people who are already infected, to stop the illness from progressing further.
Sir Mene warned the treatment will likely cost double the amount of a standard vaccine and should be reserved for the most vulnerable patients.
The treatment uses so-called monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), which have been engineered in a laboratory and mimic antibodies naturally produced by recovered Covid patients.
Monoclonal antibodies are already being used to treat tetanus, Ebola and diphtheria.
The two antibodies are given in combination via an injection. They work by binding to the coronavirus’s spike proteins, which is uses to latch onto human cells, and preventing it from entering the body.
Professor Peter Openshaw, scientific adviser to the Government and an immunologist at Imperial College London, told The Telegraph: ‘I think it’s potentially a very exciting form of therapy and the field has advanced quite remarkably over recent years in terms of the ability to produce antibodies in factories or in labs in bulk, that would be necessary for such a treatment to work. We do have to wait for some really good studies to demonstrate this.’
A similar therapy is being trialled on dozens of Covid-19 patients in the US by New York-based firm Regeneron.
The drugmaker has developed its own antibody cocktail using an antibody made in a lab and a second isolated from humans who recovered from the disease.
Like AstraZeneca’s treatment, it is designed so that its two antibodies bind to the coronavirus’ spike protein, preventing the virus from latching onto human cells.
Antibodies are proteins which are produced by the immune system in response to the presence of a foreign substance, such as coronavirus. This can take a number of days.
Antibodies recognise and latch onto these substances, called antigens, in order to remove them from the body.
The immune system remembers the antigen so that if a person is exposed to it again, it can produce antibodies quicker.
It is not clear how long antibodies from the first infection last in the system providing some form of immunity.
An injection of cloned antibodies would be made by taking genetic coding for Covid-19 antibodies and engineering clones in a lab in order to make mass quantities.
Oxford University’s jab, which is being trialled on more than 11,000 people, is the frontrunner to become the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine.
Professor Sarah Gilbert, the the world-renowned expert behind the vaccine, believes the jab will give protection the virus for several years at least.
Concerns had been raised after those with other types of coronavirus – which are less dangerous and cause the common cold – were able, in tests, to be reinfected within a year.
But Professor Gilbert told MPs earlier this month there may be a better result from a vaccine than the natural immunity acquired when individuals simply recover from a virus.
She said: ‘Vaccines have a different way of engaging with the immune system, and we follow people in our studies using the same type of technology to make the vaccines for several years, and we still see strong immune responses.
‘It’s something we have to test and follow over time – we can’t know until we actually have the data – but we’re optimistic based on earlier studies that we will see a good duration of immunity, for several years at least, and probably better than naturally-acquired immunity.’
Asked for a timeline on the vaccine, after the prospect was raised of facing the winter without one, Professor Gilbert told the committee: ‘I hope we can improve on those timelines and come to your rescue.’
Some 8,000 people are taking part in a major trial of the Oxford vaccine, which is being manufactured by pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca.
But, as rates of coronavirus have fallen in this country, researchers are also aiming to vaccinate 4,000 individuals in Brazil and 2,000 in South Africa.
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