IMMUNOPRECISE ANTIBODIES LTD, following its announcement to develop innovative treatments against the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, unveils its unique approach utilizing PolyTope mAb Therapy™, enabled by IPA’s diverse discovery platforms and artificial intelligence capabilities with their partner, EVQLV, Inc., in the development of a universal COVID-19 therapy.

Current vaccine strategies under development for SARS-CoV-2 are being designed to protect uninfected individuals, however, this does not address the patients with active disease. Antibody therapies represent a potentially powerful treatment option for COVID-19 patients, however, the current, proposed curative options (including polyclonal, sensitized serum or individual monoclonal antibody therapies) are potentially susceptible to escape by viral mutation and are likely not broadly effective against multiple strains, leaving segments of the population untreatable.

“Given the continuous increase in information on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and seemingly higher than predicted mutation rates, we believe that traditional treatments and diagnostics targeting limited epitopes may present a significant liability for long-term efficacy of a therapeutic, vaccine or diagnostic”, stated ImmunoPrecise CEO and president, Dr. Jennifer Bath.
The emerging SARS-CoV-2 virus, and other new (related) pathogens, requires the rapid development of broadly effective treatments and vaccines. Given its biology, developing an effective therapeutic workplan for treating SARS-CoV-2 infection required a sophisticated approach that considered multiple mechanisms of immune system involvement, the predictability of mutations within the virus genome, and other attributes with the potential to provide maximum clinical benefit for both current and future variants of the virus.
Ilse Roodink, Chairwoman of Talem’s Scientific Advisory Committee and Coronavirus Global Project Leader emphasized, “Our PolyTope mAb Therapy™ perfectly combines the benefits of using well-defined and fully characterized monoclonal antibodies with the essential need for a multi-targeting strategy to tackle this quickly emerging virus, thereby significantly accelerating effective clinical application”.