We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
I think in one of AS presentation he talks about low cost, mass bulk and quick turn around of affirmers, compared to antibodies.
Feel a little stupid. Nobel prize stuff.
Antibodies are made from cell lines, not directly from animals(I think).
But the more I read the size of market becomes apparent. Stability of the final product an issue, and I think I saw somewhere that affimers are more stable.
How are the identified antibodies made. Is that a difficult/expensive process. Do animals get injected with virus (weakened), or is protein isolated and injected? How is the antibody obtained from there.
How are the administered ? Would affimers be administered the same way. Any pointers appreciated.
I presume that affimers using recombinant process are easier to manufacture, as well as any therapeutic advantages (smaller etc).
I’ll do some of my own research but pointers appreciated.
Apologies - post crossed.
AstraZeneca has licensed coronavirus-neutralising antibodies from Vanderbilt University, US, and plans to advance a pair of these mAbs into clinical development as a potential combination therapy for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. This agreement builds on the Company’s collaboration agreement with Vanderbilt, announced in April 2020.
Following rapid mobilisation of its global research efforts, AstraZeneca has evaluated the ability of more than 1,500 mAbs to bind to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and inhibit its capacity to infect healthy cells in a laboratory setting. Based on these pre-clinical results, the Company has signed an exclusive license to six candidate antibodies currently in Vanderbilt’s portfolio that target the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Two mAbs from these six will progress into clinical evaluation as a combination approach within the next two months.
AstraZeneca has also signed an interagency agreement with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the US Department of Defense, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the US Department of Health and Human Services, to support the company’s efforts to develop a mAb treatment against SARS-CoV-2, including a Phase I clinical trial and the manufacturing of the investigational product for testing in Phase I.
Ken,
Nice post and I have had lots of dealings with University of Glasgow in past but on Vet side and they have a rich history of experience and expertise in viral vectors and virus’s.
PS I work for one if the Company’s you highlighted involved in developing neutralising therapies for Covid 19.
ATB
Problem is that Affimers have never been used in man. So necessarily there will be a much longer and tortuous regulatory path than using an antibody or other treatment.
Whilst we are desperate for mass testing to become available, the almost more important development is the collaborative work with the Centre for Virus Research at the University of Glasgow has shown that Affimer reagents which bind to the SARS-COV-2 virus spike protein prevent infection of human cells by a SARS-COV-2 model virus and therefore provide a potential therapy for COVID-19 infection.
Recently, Avacta reported that several of the Affimer reagents that had been generated to develop COVID-19 antigen tests inhibited the interaction between the coronavirus' spike protein and a receptor found on human cells, called ACE2, which the virus spike protein binds to as the first step in infecting cells.
Avacta has now successfully completed the initial phase of a collaboration with Professor David Bhella at the University of Glasgow showing that these "neutralising" Affimer reagents prevent a SARS-COV-2 model virus from entering human cells and therefore provide a potential therapy for COVID-19.
Affimer reagents have key benefits compared with antibodies as virus neutralising therapies: Their small size and high solubility means that a much higher concentration of Affimer molecules can be used in the drug formulation to more effectively block the spike proteins on each virus particle and better protect the patient; bispecific and trispecific Affimer neutralising therapies that bind to more than one part of the spike protein could ensure the effectiveness of the neutralising therapy even if the virus' spike protein mutates.
Neutralising therapies could be given to those exposed to the virus, such as health and social-care workers, to prevent infection, as well as to patients already infected by the virus, to help treat and prevent disease progression. There is ongoing significant investment by large pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, GSK, Boehringer Ingelheim and others to develop neutralising therapies for COVID-19.
Given the excellent performance of these novel reagents in the assays, and the other benefits of Affimer reagents, there should be considerable interest from potential partners in developing them as a therapy for COVID-19.
The next announcement from Avacta on this massive break through will be hugely valuable and this partnership when it is announced will be transformational for all their therapeutic Affimer technology.
Could this come this week? I hope it comes very soon. It will again take many months to go through the testing and stage 1 clinical trials, but this is the key to stopping the the danger in 2021.
The value of this treatment could be huge.
Cheers Rich