HYDERABAD: Hyderabad-based vaccine-maker Bharat Biotech will be leading a project sanctioned by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to develop human monoclonal antibodies as therapy for Covid-19. The project will be launched under CSIR’s flagship programme New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative.
Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and MD of Bharat Biotech, said that the project will, within the next six months, focus on developing a powerful cocktail of antibodies that can neutralise the novel Coronavirus and also simultaneously block further mutants of the virus from causing any damage to health.
“The purpose of vaccination is to protect the healthy against future infections and it alone may not provide the complete solution. We feel the monoclonal antibody therapy will provide a viable option. The question is how to treat the individuals who are already infected? We do not yet know how effective an anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine will be in the elderly and those with comorbidities. As a large number of Indians suffer from hypertension, diabetes and heart diseases, this becomes an important issue,” he said.
Fast-tracking development process
Dwelling on the antibodies’ approach to deal with Covid-19, he said, “While both Israel and the Netherlands have recently announced the development of virus-neutralising antibodies, our approach is to develop a powerful combination of neutralising antibodies that can also simultaneously block mutational variants of the virus.
We are fast-tracking the development process.” According to a press release regarding this development, over 60 monoclonal antibodies have already been developed against viruses such as human cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex virus, HIV-1, Ebola virus and SARS virus and several of them are currently in clinical trials. Pune-based National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Indian Institute of Technology-Indore and Gurgaon-based PredOmix Technologies will also be involved in the CSIR project.
Cocktail of antibodies
Monoclonal antibodies are lab-developed antibodies which can mimic the human immune system and block the spread of infection