ImmunoPrecise Antibodies unveils new therapy approach in bid to tackle coronavirus

ImmunoPrecise Antibodies Ltd (OTCMKTS:IPATF) (CVE:IPA), the antibody discovery specialist, on Thursday outlined a new approach to develop innovative treatments to fight the killer coronavirus -  now declared a global pandemic.  As revealed in late February, ImmunoPrecise is aiming to address both prophylactic and therapeutic measures to fight the virus and its associated disease, COVID-19. Today, it unveiled the use of PolyTope mAb Therapy, which it says is enabled by Immunoprecise's diverse discovery platforms and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities with partner EVQLV Inc. READ: ImmunoPrecise Antibodies joins global fight against coronavirus Last month, Immunoprecise named Dr Ilse Roodink, the firm's chair its subsidiary Talem Therapeutic's scientific committee, as its Coronavirus global project leader. ImmunoPrecise highlighted in a statement that current vaccine strategies under development for SARS-CoV-2 are being designed to protect uninfected individuals, however, this did not address patients with 'active' diseases. "Antibody therapies represent a potentially powerful treatment option for COVID-19 patients, however, the current, proposed curative options (including polyclonal, sensitized serum or individual monoclonal antibody therapies) are potentially susceptible to escape by viral mutation and are likely not broadly effective against multiple strains, leaving segments of the population untreatable," it said. "Given the continuous increase in information on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and seemingly higher than predicted mutation rates, we believe that traditional treatments and diagnostics targeting limited epitopes may present a significant liability for long-term efficacy of a therapeutic, vaccine or diagnostic," said ImmunoPrecise's chief executive and president Dr Jennifer Bath. Roodink told investors: "Our PolyTope mAb Therapy perfectly combines the benefits of using well-defined and fully characterized monoclonal antibodies with the essential need for a multi-targeting strategy to tackle this quickly emerging virus, thereby significantly accelerating effective clinical application." Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) labelled the outbreak of the disease as a pandemic. There are 124,519 cases globally and 4,607 deaths. Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com