Bristol Myers Squibb was a late entrant to the COVID-19 therapeutics space, picking up a pair of antibody treatments from Rockefeller University in February this year. Now, as the combination makes its way through phase 1 trials, the Big Pharma is licensing technology from Xencor that extends the treatment’s half-life.
New York-based Bristol Myers has an exclusive license to develop, manufacture and commercialize the treatment, dubbed SARS-CoV-2-mAb Duo, and if the company can pull it off, Rockefeller and Xencor will receive royalties on sales. Financial details for both licensing deals are being kept under wraps.
The antibody combination is well behind similar treatments from companies like Eli Lilly and Regeneron, both of which received emergency nods from the FDA for their anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
Lilly’s bamlanivimab brought in $871 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 and was under a contract with the U.S. government until April this year. Lab testing found that bamlanivimab alone couldn’t match a combo of bamlanivimab and etesevimab at fending off emerging coronavirus variants, leading the government to stop using it in several states where one variant was taking hold.
The company stopped supplying bamlanivimab as a solo therapy to the U.S. and the FDA revoked emergency use authorization. Lilly’s combination, as well as Regeneron’s tandem casirivimab and imdevimab, are authorized for the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 infection.
Despite Lilly and Regeneron’s head start and the authorization of several vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infection, Bristol Myers decided to jump into the fray anyway. The antibodies licensed from Rockefeller have a high affinity for the spike protein, the company said in February, but their most important feature could be how long they hang around in the bloodstream before they are cleared.
“By extending half-life, we improve upon a candidate’s product profile and potentially reduce costs—both of which are important features, particularly for an anti-viral therapy intended for pandemic use,” said Xencor CEO Bassil Dahiyat, Ph.D., in a statement.
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Scientists at Rockefeller are testing intravenous and subcutaneous delivery of the combo in a phase 1 study. If, as preclinical data suggest, a low-dose subcutaneous formulation of the two antibodies works, Bristol Myers may be able to deliver large volumes of the product at a relatively low cost and in a format that is quick and easy to administer.
Bristol Myers is planning to move quickly into registrational studies once the phase 1 is complete. The phase 2 and 3 studies are being planned as part of the National Institutes of Health’s ACTIV-2 trial, which is evaluating treatments in patients with COVID-19 who are not hospitalized.
If all goes well, Bristol Myers aims to bring the combo to low- and middle-income countries. The cost of manufacturing antibodies and the challenges of administering intravenous medicines have largely limited use of existing treatments to the U.S. so far.