Add Take­da and Al­ny­lam to the menu of glob­al drug­mak­ers look­ing to stymie the coro­n­avirus epi­dem­ic

As the WHO de­clares that the glob­al mor­tal­i­ty rate of the in­fec­tions caused by the new coro­n­avirus stands at 3.4%, Take­da and Al­ny­lam have joined the ranks of drug­mak­ers work­ing on an an­ti­dote.

Take­da is look­ing to de­vel­op a plas­ma-de­rived ther­a­py — which it says has been shown to be ef­fec­tive in treat­ing se­vere acute vi­ral res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tions — for in­di­vid­u­als at high risk of con­tract­ing Covid-19.

Julie Kim

The ther­a­py, which is be­ing re­ferred to as TAK-888, will be de­rived from the blood of coro­n­avirus pa­tients who have re­cov­ered from the res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease — us­ing the ra­tio­nale that an­ti­bod­ies cul­ti­vat­ed by re­cov­ered pa­tients should arm the im­mune sys­tems of new pa­tients with fresh am­mu­ni­tion to de­stroy the in­fec­tion.

“What we are try­ing to de­vel­op here … will not pre­vent the dis­ease, but hope­ful­ly we’ll be able to treat se­vere pa­tients who are suf­fer­ing from Covid-19, and po­ten­tial­ly pro­vide some pro­tec­tion to front­line health­care work­ers,” Julie Kim, head of Take­da’s plas­ma-de­rived ther­a­pies busi­ness unit, told End­points News. “It’ll be great once the vac­cine is avail­able, then you can ac­tu­al­ly pre­vent the dis­ease.”

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