The Israel Biological Research Institute (IIBR) announced that it has developed an antibody that neutralizes the coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) in infected patients. It has not been tested outside the laboratory.
The Israel Biological Research Institute (IIBR) said Tuesday it completed a “groundbreaking scientific development” toward a possible treatment for COVID-19 based on an antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV2, the coronavirus that causes the disease.
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The Israeli Defense Minister – to whom the IIBR, one of the most experienced laboratories in defense against biological weapons, is attached – speaking on behalf of the institute, emphasized that this achievement could become a treatment for patients with COVID-19, but that is not a vaccine.
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According to EFE, in March, the Haaretz newspaper published that this center had made serious progress in its search for a vaccine, but Defense issued a denial and assured that it would be informed when it was.
According to the Times of Israel, this development would not be useful in creating a vaccine, but rather a step towards drug treatment for those who have already contracted the disease. The antibody has not yet been tested outside of a Petri dish. The next phase consists of a long process of preclinical animal testing, followed by clinical trials. This period allows a complete characterization of the side effects and a better understanding of how different populations are affected.
The laboratory was the first in the world to reach three main milestones: finding an antibody that destroys the virus; that it specifically targets this coronavirus; And that is monoclonal, it lacks additional proteins that can cause complications for patients, the Israeli Defense Ministry said on Twitter.
Professor Shuki Shemer, head of Israel’s Assuta Medical Center and former director-general of the Health Ministry, told the Israel Times: “They have produced an antibody that neutralizes the virus,” he said, although “there is still a long way to go in terms testing and approval. ”
According to the Haaretz newspaper, in January, China released the genetic sequence of the virus in open scientific databases so that research institutes and commercial companies could try to develop treatments and vaccines without the need to obtain samples.
About a month and a half after the publication of the genetic sequence, the Boston, Massachusetts-based biotech company Moderna, Inc. announced that it had completed the development of a possible coronavirus vaccine. Immediately afterward, the vaccine was shipped to the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with clinical trials, which will include up to 25 health participants, to begin in April and end in the summer. Any Israeli vaccine will also have to go through a similar or even stricter process before being approved for use.
According to EFE, the IIBR is preparing the registration of the patent and that it will shortly contact pharmaceutical companies to produce it on a commercial scale. Just today, several scientists around the world launched a worldwide petition to make any vaccine or treatment developed for coronavirus in the public domain: “The search for a new vaccine is a long process (the established time is approximately 18 months in the case of the current pandemic, which would already be an absolute record for speed).
This research is expensive. Many commercial laboratories involved in the research will expect a high return on your investment. We need to find a formula that offers a fair return in exchange for the vaccine being in the public domain. This is the most important thing: that the research results are in the public domain so that the vaccine can be produced by anyone under strict international supervision.
Funding can be assumed, with private and public support, by individual governments or groups of governments, foundations, philanthropists, and global organizations, such as the WHO.
But we must resolve an ethical aspect of vital importance: what extraordinary benefit should be accrued to a laboratory or to a researcher for discovering a medicine that saves lives and that everyone in the world needs? “they write.
