AbCellera and Eli Lilly have
announced their partnership to develop, manufacture and distribute antibody
treatments for the COVID-19 coronavirus.
AbCellera and Eli Lilly and Company have announced that
they have entered into an agreement to co-develop antibody products for the
treatment and prevention of COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2
novel coronavirus.
According to the companies, the
collaboration will leverage AbCellera’s pandemic response platform and Lilly’s
global capabilities for rapid development, manufacturing and distribution of
therapeutic antibodies.
Within one week of receiving a
blood sample from one of the first US patients who recovered from COVID-19,
AbCellera screened over five million immune cells to identify ones that
produced functional antibodies that helped the patient neutralise the virus and
recover from the disease. From this effort, the company has identified over 500
unique fully human antibody sequences, the largest panel of anti-SARS-CoV-2
antibodies ever reported. The next step is to screen these antibodies to find
the ones most effective in neutralising SARS-CoV-2, says AbCellera.
“AbCellera’s platform has
delivered, with unprecedented speed, by far the world’s largest panel of
anti-SAR-CoV-2 antibodies,†said Dr Carl Hansen, Chief Executive Officer
of AbCellera. “We’ve discovered hundreds of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2
virus responsible for the current outbreak, moved into functional testing with
global experts in virology and signed a co-development agreement with one of
the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies… Together, our teams are
committed to delivering a countermeasure to stop the outbreak.â€
“We’ve partnered with AbCellera
because we’re impressed with the speed and quality of their efforts. We are
moving at top speed to create a potential treatment to help patients. While
typically a new therapeutic antibody programme might take years to get in the
clinic, our goal with AbCellera is to be testing potential new therapies in
patients within the next four months,†said Dr Daniel Skovronsky, Lilly’s
Chief Scientific Officer and president of Lilly Research Laboratories.
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