AstraZeneca in talks with governments to find cure for virus

BRITAIN’S biggest drugs company has joined the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. AstraZeneca is using a pioneering approach to develop potential medicines to treat patients with the virus. The company is understood to be in talks with Western governments and academic institutions about research agreements that could be announced in the coming days.

A deal would see the company team up with experts on monoclonal antibodies – an area in which AstraZeneca specialises.

Monoclonal antibodies are manmade substitutes for the antibodies which are produced by the immune system to fight diseases. They mimic natural antibodies and can boost the way the human body reacts to viruses. AstraZeneca has deployed dozens of its top virus experts to look at various monoclonal antibodies that could be used to treat Covid-19 and which could then be trialled in humans.The company said in a statement to The Mail on Sunday: ‘We are actively identifying monoclonal antibodies as a treatment to prevent Covid-19 disease using our proprietary antibody discovery technology.

‘Through our scientific expertise in infectious disease and antibody development, we have rapidly mobilised our research efforts.’

The statement added: ‘Our research and development team of more than 50 virology experts across research, clinical, regulatory and manufacturing are placing the highest priority to developing a treatment to coronavirus to minimise the global impact on the overall health of patients and the public.’

Other companies are also ramping up their efforts to help battle the global outbreak. A smaller British firm called Synairgen – which was previously a partner of AstraZeneca – is this week starting human trials to test if its existing lung treatment will help patients who have contracted Covid-19. If the results come back positive, the company hopes to be able to start treating patients within the next year.

The pilot phase, beginning this week, will last two months and will involve 100 patients – half of which will be given placebos while the remainder take the potential treatment. If the results are positive, the company will begin a larger human ‘pivotal’ trial.

Richard Marsden, chief executive of the AIM-listed company, said he is convinced that getting a treatment ready for widespread use within a year is ‘feasible’. In normal circumstances these trials take several years to complete.

‘There might be two or three drugs which produce positive data over the next eight weeks,’ Marsden told The Mail on Sunday. ‘If we get good data and it’s well tolerated, I would expect governments to be under pressure to want to talk to us about larger supplies of the drug.’ Marsden hailed the authorities for giving his company fast-track approval for its test medication which it is also hoping will treat asthma and the lung condition known as COPD.

Meanwhile, London-based Behold. ai claims its artificial intelligencebased algorithm could help identify the patients with Covid-19 who are most at risk. The company, whose algorithm has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration this month and which works with the NHS and has been hailed by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, specialises in detecting abnormal chest X-rays almost instantly. That includes pneumonia, which has been a major cause of deaths from Covid-19. The company analysed 28 Italian X-rays and said it correctly identified 85 per cent of them as ‘abnormal’.

Jerome Custers, senior scientific director of vaccines at Janssen, said collaboration between companies and organisations was happening on an unprecedented scale.

HE SAID: ‘Information has never been shared as quickly as is happening now. If you compare it with the Sars outbreak, it took months before the first information was available.

Information is now being shared publicly and very quickly. It’s a crisis situation so this collaboration is absolutely needed.’

Janssen, which is the pharmaceutical arm of American giant Johnson & Johnson, is testing different vaccine prototypes in its labs in the Netherlands. It will select a lead vaccine candidate in two weeks and will start manufacturing so it can be trialled in humans by November.

Custers said the company has ‘looked at every opportunity that is there to accelerate the development of this vaccine’.

He added: ‘It’s important we have multiple vaccines from different companies or organisations in development because we will learn from each other.’

Custers said that Johnson & Johnson had been contacted proactively by its suppliers of raw materials so that they are ready to manufacture on a large scale when needed.