Ab­b­Vie pulls the trig­ger on a Covid-19 an­ti­body, go­ing all in on a drug dis­cov­ered by re­search al­liance

With mul­ti­ple re­pur­posed Covid-19 treat­ments al­ready in the clin­ic (and one that flunked out), Ab­b­Vie is plac­ing its next bet on some­thing new: an ex­per­i­men­tal an­ti­body it spent the last sev­er­al months de­vel­op­ing with Har­bour Bio­Med, the Nether­lands’ Utrecht Uni­ver­si­ty and Eras­mus Med­ical Cen­ter.

Ab­b­Vie joined the an­ti­body hunt back in June, with its sights set on Har­bour’s 47D11. The Illi­nois-based phar­ma is now putting down a one-time li­cense fee for world­wide de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights to the an­ti­body, which it says shows promise in not on­ly SARS-CoV-2, but al­so re­lat­ed mu­ta­tions of the virus and SARS-CoV-1. It dosed the first pa­tient in a 24-per­son Phase I tri­al just last week.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER