David Johnson of GigaGen discusses how recombinant forms of intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIG) could overtake current IVIG therapies and be used in the treatment of COVID-19. In light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic there has been a rush to develop therapeutics to combat the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causing the disease and, most recently, a discussion about the possibilities of using convalescent plasma as a treatment for severe COVID-19 patients.

A group of US academic researchers has sparked a nationwide effort to encourage people who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate plasma, which will be used to treat patients across the country. The convalescent plasma program was instigated by physicians and investigators from 40 institutions, including the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University, Washington University, Einstein Medical Center and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, among many others working closely with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and industry partners.

Introducing 9 Meters Biopharma, the new company birthed from the merger of Raleigh-based Innovate Biopharmaceuticals, a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and Israeli-based RDD Pharma, a startup focused on orphan and innovative therapies for gastrointestinal disorders.

Producing so many doses will require creating new facilities or commandeering those used for other vaccines. Critics of RNA and DNA vaccines point to the fact that we already have the established infrastructure to make traditional vaccines. “Governments are trying to build potential manufacturing capacities for [RNA and DNA vaccines], but they are not there yet,” says Thomas Lingelbach, the CEO of Valneva, which is working on a traditional approach to a COVID-19 vaccine. Not that it’s easy to just start producing any vaccine by the billions. He plans on using a facility that was intended for Valneva’s chikungunya vaccine, whether for Valneva’s vaccine or perhaps another company’s if Valneva’s is unsuccessful. “These are complicated biological processes, no matter what technology you use,” says Lingelbach. It’s a manual process too, featuring human beings in safety gear. “It’s not like producing a car,” he says.

It’s early, not even 7 a.m., in fact, and the above statement is prefaced with an apology for interrupting the free-flowing dialogue taking place between a gathering of five biopharmaceutical executives on day two of the 2020 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPM). Among the incessant ringing of nearby cell phones, conversations, and the echo of flatware clinking on dishes, we’ve come together at the Marriott’s Level III restaurant in San Francisco for a roundtable discussion on corporate culture, only our table happens to be rectangular. And though all arrived early and have already met, we take a moment for each to formally introduce themselves (listed in order of introduction).

With the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic still growing, many pharmaceutical companies are adapting their current R&D programmes to develop therapeutics or vaccines to help stop the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causing the outbreak. Drug Target Review’s Hannah Balfour explores how Cidara is transferring its expertise in therapeutics for respiratory viruses to focus on developing a potential treatment for COVID-19 with its President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Jeff Stein.

In an interview with CancerNetwork®, Henry Adewoye, MD, chief medical officer at Compugen, discussed the study of COM701, which was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Virtual Meeting 2020, held from April 27-28, 2020. COM701 is a novel first-in-class immune checkpoint inhibitor that demonstrated encouraging preliminary antitumor activity with objective responses as a monotherapy and in combination with nivolumab (Opdivo) in hard to treat tumor types, such as primary peritoneal and microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.