As National Commander of the Order of Saint Andrew, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and as a physician, I am extremely proud of the 2021 Athenagoras Human Rights Award Honorees. Speeches from the Apostolic Visit of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the United States
The Race To Keep Antibody Treatments One Step Ahead Of Covid-19 Variants
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Scientists working on the development of human monoclonal antibodies against coronavirus (Photo by Gianluca Panella/Getty Images)
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Antibody therapies have been a key tool in keeping patients out of hospitals, but drug companies are fighting to stay ahead of coronavirus mutations.
Last year, as the Covid-19 pandemic raged across the country, filling hospitals beyond capacity, biotech companies raced to develop new treatments and vaccines. Pharma company Eli Lilly, for example, partnered with Vancouver-based AbCellera to develop an antibody treatment. That partnership began in February 2020, and by May the new drug, bamlanivimab was already in clinical trials. Six months later, in November, the company received an emergency use authorization from the FDA, and the Federal government contracted for 950,000 doses of the treatment at a price of $1.2 billion. �
A representation of monoclonal antibodies binding to antigens on a cell surface.
Anna Tanczos/Wellcome Images
Before becoming a Covid-19 drug, each candidate was just a tiny fragment of someone’s immune system, part of a swarm of Y-shaped proteins unleashed to try to keep the coronavirus from invading more cells. If the person recovered, these antibodies might end up in a blood sample in a lab. Some proved more effective than others. Yet even as researchers pinpointed the best of the bunch as possible medications, they knew their power could wane: What worked against the coronavirus as it was last year could falter as the pathogen evolved.
Companies race to develop drugs that stay ahead of coronavirus mutations
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Joseph Walker
, The Wall Street Journal
Covid-19 medicines currently on the market are cumbersome to use, and doctors worry that virus variants could make them less effective
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Drugmakers are racing to develop a new generation of Covid-19 medicines to make them easier to give to patients and to stay ahead of virus mutations that could make some current drugs less effective.
The drugs, known as monoclonal antibodies, are lab-engineered versions of antibodies that simulate the body’s natural immune response to viruses. They are considered among the most promising for preventing infected patients from developing severe or fatal symptoms and keeping them out of the hospital. After catching Covid-19, President Trump was treated with one of the drugs and credited it with his speedy recovery. Doctors say the drugs will continue to be important treatments for the foreseea
Dec 22, 2020
On a Saturday afternoon in March as COVID-19 was bearing down on New York City, a dozen scientists anxiously crowded around a computer in a suburban drug company’s lab. They had spent weeks frantically getting blood from early survivors across the globe and from mice with human-like immune systems all to test thousands of potential treatments.
Now it was time for results.
The screen flashed totals of glowing green dots, hundreds or thousands in most samples. Then they saw some 10s, some twos and finally, zeroes.
The researchers cheered and their boss sent out for champagne.
No dots meant no infected cells. The scientists had found antibodies that block the coronavirus.