Monoclonal Antibodies: Maybe Our Best Weapon vs. COVID-19

As Dr. Anthony Fauci noted in a recent interview with MedPage Today, monoclonal antibodies were very important in defeating Ebola-virus, and have huge potential in the fight against COVID-19 because they “can either be used as prophylaxis to prevent infection or to actually treat someone who’s already infected.”

As pointed out in a recent Bloomberg News report on MSN, monoclonal antibodies also have the greatest potential to protect senior citizens, whose immune systems do not always respond to vaccines. With a vaccine, you have to hope for a strong immune response (which is apparently promising with current vaccine candidates) but with monoclonal antibody treatments, the patient is getting large doses of fresh antibodies cloned from those with strong immunity. Also, if there are side effects with any vaccine, or if the vaccine arrivals are delayed, monoclonal antibodies may be able to fill the gap. They also can treat patients who are already sick, which vaccines cannot.

NewsMedical, an open access life science publishing hub, also pointed out why monoclonal antibodies may be superior to convalescent plasma, which is currently in use on some patients who are already very sick. “It is clear that treatment using convalescent plasma provides only partial protection, and only in instances when plasma with high neutralizing titers is used,” according to Dr. Tomislav Mistrovic. In the MedPage interview, Dr. Fauci added that “the difference between a monoclonal antibody and plasma is that plasma has a lot of other things in it that could lead to allergic and other reactions. Whereas monoclonal antibodies are really very pure in the sense that they are monoclonal, which is, by definition, means they’re extremely pure.”

It is encouraging that the VIR-GSK partnership has already launched late-stage clinical trials of their monoclonal antibody candidate, according to MedCity News, and earlier testing showed very promising results. The same publication noted that several companies have developed monoclonal antibody candidates to treat Covid-19, and some of them are using a “cocktail” of antibodies (similar to what was done with AIDS drugs) on the theory that a cocktail approach can overcome multi-pronged viral resistance mechanisms.

As documented previously on this blog, the various monoclonal antibody candidates that are currently under testing should be available by late this year and early next year if final testing phases go smoothly. It is incredible that these treatments are being developed within the space of a year when it took humanity years to just identify and isolate HIV, and years more to develop effective treatment protocols. Hats off to the scientists and researchers who have been working at a furious pace to win the war against COVID.