Antibody injection against coronavirus for the elderly could be ready next year - Money

An antibody treatment to instantly provide protection against the coronavirus could be ready next year, according to the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca who is also leading the race to manufacture the first vaccine.

The Cambridge-based firm is working on an injection that contains ‘cloned antibodies’ – proteins that know how to fight the virus.

It would provide a person with the antibodies they need should SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, infect them.

The company says the injection would be prioritised for the elderly because a vaccine may not protect them as well.

Vaccines prompt the body to produce its own antibodies in preparation for the real infection. But elder people do not respond as well and develop less potent antibodies than young people.

AstraZeneca has already started to manufacture the Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine to ensure, if it does pass current human trials, it can be made available in the autumn.

An antibody treatment to instantly provide protection against the coronavirus could be ready next year, according to the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, who would prioritise the elderly (stock)

AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said the treatment being developed is ‘a combination of two antibodies’ in an injected dose

AstraZeneca has already started to manufacture the Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine to ensure, if it does pass current human trials, it can be made available in the autumn

Scientists working on a potential coronavirus vaccine have almost reached a breakthrough on an antibody treatment, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

They are up to ‘full speed’ on testing, with executives increasingly hopeful an effective treatment can go into production next year.

AstraZeneca’s chief executive Pascal Soriot told the newspaper that the treatment being developed is ‘a combination of two antibodies’ in an injected dose.

Having both ‘reduces the chance of resistance developing to one antibody’.

Antibodies are proteins which are produced by the immune system in response to the presence of a foreign substance, like the coronavirus. This can take a number of days.

Antibodies recognize 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.

‘Monoclonal antibodies’ have been used in the treatment of diphtheria, tetanus and Ebola. Many international scientists are looking at them for the new coronavirus, but there are few in clinical trials.

The dose which allows the body to counteract Covid-19 could prove hugely significant for those in the early stages of infection, according to AstraZeneca.

It would essentially give a person the chance to fight the virus quickly so that it doesn’t have the ability to develop into severe disease.

This could be life-saving for the elderly, the most at-risk group for Covid-19.

It’s not entirely clear why those over the age of 80 are the most vulnerable to the virus, but it is known their immune systems are slower to respond, and weaker.

For this reason, there are concerns they may not produce a strong response to a vaccine.

A vaccine works by forcing the body to produce antibodies and other important immune cells by imitating the virus.

Mr Soriot said the antibody treatment, which would be more expensive to produce than a vaccine, would be prioritised for the elderly and vulnerable ‘who may not be able to develop a good response to a vaccine’.

WHAT IS THE OXFORD VACCINE?

The vaccine is called AZD1222 and is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) from chimpanzees that has been genetically changed so it is impossible for it to grow in humans.

The intellectual rights to its vaccine are owned by the University of Oxford and a spin-out company called Vaccitech.

Clinical teams at the Oxford University’s Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group began developing the vaccine in January.

It’s a type of immunisation known as a recombinant viral vector vaccine.

Researchers place genetic material from the coronavirus into another virus that’s been modified. They will then inject the virus into a human, hoping to produce an immune response against SARS-CoV-2.

This virus, weakened by genetic engineering, is a type of virus called an adenovirus, the same as those which cause common colds, that has been taken from chimpanzees.

If the vaccines can successfully mimic the spikes inside a person’s bloodstream, and stimulate the immune system to create special antibodies to attack it, this could train the body to destroy the real coronavirus if they get infected with it in future.

It was developed so rapidly by Sarah Gilbert, a professor of vaccinology, and her team because they already had a base vaccine for similar coronaviruses.

The team have gone through stages of vaccine development that usually take five years in just four months.

However, Professor Gilbert said that none of the normal safety steps had been missed out.

Oxford University is in the midst of trialling its vaccine, which will be manufactured by AstraZeneca if proven to work, on older people.

Following an initial phase of testing on 160 healthy volunteers between 18 and 55, the study of ‘AZD1222’ has moved to phases two and three.

It will involve increasing the testing to up to 10,260 people and expanding the age range of volunteers to include the elderly and children.

On Thursday, AstraZeneca signed a deal with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi) to help manufacture 300million globally accessible doses.

One of the new members of the coalition agreed this week is the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines by volume.

SII has hinted it is exploring other ‘parallel’ partnerships with AstraZeneca, suggesting it may increase funding for the antibody treatment too, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

AstraZeneca has started to mass-produce the experimental AZD1222 jab at factories in India, Oxford, Switzerland and Norway, it was revealed last week.

The firm expects to have distributed hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine this year and at least two billion by mid-2021.

It has signed deals to produce 400million doses for the US and 100million for the UK if it is successful in human trials.

Britain has agreed to pay for the doses ‘as early as possible’ – with ministers hoping for a third of those to be ready for September if proven effective.

Results of the AZD1222 jab are expected in August.

However, Professor Adrian Hill, the director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, told the Telegraph the rapid disappearance of the virus itself in the UK has thrown doubt on the team’s ability to meet the deadline in four months’ time.

‘We said earlier in the year that there was an 80 per cent chance of developing an effective vaccine by September,’ he told the paper.

‘But at the moment, there’s a 50 per cent chance that we get no result at all.

‘We’re in the bizarre position of wanting Covid to stay, at least for a little while. But cases are declining.’

Trials of the potential vaccine have started in Brazil, a new epicentre of the pandemic, to ensure the study can be properly tested as transmission rates fall in the UK.

The Jenner Institute and the Oxford Vaccine Group began development on a vaccine in January, using a virus taken from chimpanzees.

Meanwhile, UK-based vaccine manufacturer Seqirus announced it is working in partnership with parent company CSL, CEPI and the University of Queensland to help develop a candidate Covid-19 vaccine in Australia.

Its manufacturing base in Liverpool is producing an adjuvant, an agent which improves the immune response of a vaccine.