Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RapCo-19 (Rapid COVID-19 Passive Therapy Response Platform)
Période du rapport: 2021-05-01 au 2022-05-31
Short-lived passive immunisation with an anti-COVID-19 therapy is immediately required to treat infected patients and to ‘flatten the infection curve’ and to provide time for ‘herd immunity’ and mass vaccination approaches. Devising an effective strategy requires an approach that is designed to exploit the extreme heterogeneity of the human anti-viral immune response. RemedyBio’s Nanoreactor technology is such a system. It is the result of a 5-year research programme to develop a platform to rapidly and simultaneously analyse millions of single antibody-producing immune cells from an individual sample. In the context of COVID-19, this presents an opportunity to rapidly identify the best antibodies from the immune systems of COVID-19 convalescent patients from which to create a rapid passive therapeutic for those that are critically ill from the virus.
This project is designed to combine novel discovery and assay technologies to form a platform to rapidly identify, produce and deliver antiviral neutralising antibodies to COVID-19. Furthermore, it is expected that in the event of a future pandemic, Rapco-19 can be quickly adapted to deliver neutralising antibodies within 60 days once the process is fully developed and validated.
We have demonstrated within Deliverable 4.1 that the Rapco platform is not only capable of selecting neutralising antibodies, but that it is capable of screening against multiple variants of interest and different therapeutic modalities (Nanobodies and scFv libraries). Increasing the repertoire of potential candidates for downstream transfer for manufacture and ultimately rapid clinical deployment.
While we await the possible emergence of dangerous new variants beyond omicron, the immediate current relevance of new mABs against potential variants of concern is uncertain. Nonetheless, the need for a rapid therapeutic pandemic response platform, with capability to adapt to rapidly emerging new strains is highly valuable. The platform has been validated for identification and recovery of SARS-CoV-2 neutralising antibodies. We maintain a high level of readiness for pandemic response and applicability for Antibody discovery and B cell screening for other applications.
For instance, we have also addressed the screening of T cells with the platform, giving their potential in long-term immunological memory response that develops following patient recovery from COVID-19
Crucially, the data obtained to date validates RemedyBio Nanoreactor platform for the rapid discovery of patient-derived human monoclonal antibodies for any future pandemic rapid response.
Future steps include expression and in depth characterisation of lead antibody candidates (epitope discovery, binding affinities and mechanism of action). Purified antibody will be subsequently evaluated for clinical development.