[ad_1]
SINGAPORE – When it comes to fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, Singapore has been overcoming its weight.
Blood samples from three patients here were used to develop the experimental antibody cocktail used to treat US President Donald Trump after he tested positive for the coronavirus.
The National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) had responded to a request for collaboration from the American biotech firm Regeneron, the company that developed that antibody cocktail, without claiming intellectual property rights to the treatment.
NCID was asked to recruit up to 20 recovered patients for sample contribution.
After obtaining ethical approval and informed consent from patients, the NCID recruited five patients and was informed by Regeneron that they had, at the time, sufficient samples to develop the antibody cocktails, said associate professor David Lye, senior consultant and Director of Infectious Disease Research and Training Office at NCID, told The Straits Times on Friday (October 9).
Regeneron ultimately used three of the five patient samples from Singapore as a starting point for the research to develop the antibodies.
Regeneron’s treatment, called REGN-COV2, is a combination or “cocktail” of two antibodies, which are infection-fighting proteins that were developed to bind to the virus and inhibit its invasion of human cells.
A cocktail would make it harder for the virus to mutate and escape the antibodies, as more of them target different sites on the virus.
In an article published in Science Magazine in June, Regeneron scientists described how they selected the two best antibodies from both recovered human patients and infected mice that were genetically engineered to give them human-like immune systems.
The company has released some promising preliminary data regarding its Covid-19 therapy, but details proving the efficacy of the treatment have not been released.
In addition to the collaboration with Regeneron, Singapore is also part of a global phase 3 monoclonal antibody trial, called Activ-3, which began in August and aims to recruit 1,000 patients worldwide.
As of Thursday (October 8), 260 patients had been recruited into the global trial, most of them from Denmark and the United States. Singapore is only the third country to start recruiting patients for this.
Activ-3 is estimated to be completed by the end of the year or in January, so Singapore’s contribution will depend on how long the trial takes to recruit the study number and how many patients are eligible for the trial here.
The monoclonal antibody was developed by the American pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. It is a highly active, purified antibody that targets the coronavirus spike protein.
[ad_2]
