New Research Collaboration to Develop Combination of Monoclonal Antibody and Natural Killer Cells as Treatment for COVID-19

A new research collaboration will focus on the development of a combination of a monoclonal antibody (mAb) and Natural Killer (NK) cells as a treatment for COVID-19.

The new research collaboration by Harbour BioMed (HBM Cambridge, MA, USA), and its partners Utrecht University (Utrecht, the Netherlands) and Erasmus Medical Center (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) with Viroclinics-DDL (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and Kiadis Pharma (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) expands HBM’s ongoing work in using mAbs against SARS-CoV-2.

The collaboration capitalizes on the demonstrated anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity in early studies alongside Kiadis' K-NK cell therapy platform. COVID-19 has been shown to break down NK cell immunity, and severe COVID-19 patients lack functional NK cells. The fully human, non-blocking antibody 49F1 targets a conserved region of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and has shown strong binding affinity to both SARS-CoV-2 and a second coronavirus SARS-CoV in vitro. The collaboration will study the elimination of SARS-CoV-2 virus and virally infected cells by K-NK cells, and synergies between mAbs and NK cells.
NK cells are the human immune system's first line of defense against tumor cells and infectious disease. K-NK-ID101 cells potentially have enhanced anti-viral activity, while avoiding exacerbating needless inflammation, and therefore may be uniquely suited to repair this lack of functional NK cells. Since K-NK-ID101 cells can be manufactured at large scale and frozen down, they can be immediately and globally made available to patients.

"This innovative collaboration with Kiadis allows us to explore potential synergies between the innate and adaptive immunity," said Dr Jingsong Wang, Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of HBM. "It further underscores the multi-pronged approaches HBM and our partners are taking to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic using Harbour Mice platforms and other next-generation technologies to accelerate the development of novel human antibodies," he added.

Related Links:

BioSymetrics Inc.
Utrecht University
Erasmus Medical Center
Harbour BioMed
Viroclinics-DDL
Kiadis Pharma