A US company expects to start human trials next month for a COVID-19 antibody treatment derived from the plasma of genetically engineered cows.
A South Dakota company expects to start human trials next month for a Covid-19 antibody treatment derived from such cows.
SAb Biotherapeutics, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, have genetically engineered cows to give them part-human immune systems
“These animals are producing neutralizing antibodies that kill [the novel coronavirus] in the laboratory,” Eddie Sullivan, CEO of SAB Biotherapeutics said.
“We are eager to advance to the clinic as we move forward in the regulatory process with the hopes of bringing this potential COVID-19 therapeutic to patients in need of a solution.”
The company did not say how many people would be studied in the clinical trials or how long they would take.
It’s currently unclear how many participants are being enrolled or how long the trials are expected to take.
Cows were the animal of choice because they produce large amounts of antibodies in their blood, twice as many per milliliter compared to humans.
They also produce a wide variety of antibodies, increasing the odds that at least one of them will work.
First, SAb took skin cells from cows and removed the genes that play a role in making the animal’s antibodies.
Next, the scientists inserted an artificial human gene that produced antibodies for humans.
DNA from those cells are then inserted into a cow egg, which is fertilized into an embryo so that hundreds of cows with part-human immune systems can be produced.
Prior to the pandemic, SAb had already completed a clinical trial with antibodies from cows to treat Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a cousin of the new virus.
We are proud to partner with @BARDA and @JPEOCBRND to leverage our novel technology platform to produce SAB-185, the only therapeutic of its kind, and one of the three specific SARS-CoV-2 targeted antibodies in their MCM portfolio for #COVID19. https://t.co/exKDghdQ8x
— SAb Biotherapeutics (@SABBantibody) June 15, 2020
SAB has manufactured hundreds of doses of the medicine, called SAB-185, to use in its clinical trials. The company has not yet announced whether it will study the drug as prevention or treatment for Covid-19, or both.
The principle behind the drug is quite old. For more than a century, doctors have given patients suffering from infectious diseases the blood products from patients who’ve already recovered and produced disease-fighting antibodies. The treatment, called convalescent plasma, is still being used today to treat Covid.
The cows have several advantages over human plasma donors. One, SAB says, is cows naturally have a more robust immune response than humans, and repeated injections with the coronavirus make that response even stronger. Two, cows are large and have more plasma to give. Three, they can give plasma three times a month, instead of once a month, like humans.
According to SAB, their drug made from cow plasma has levels of neutralizing antibodies four times higher than the most potent antibodies in human samples they studied. This research, conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, was shared in a press release by the company, and has not been published or peer reviewed.
