New type of corona drug to develop based on antibody of recovered person Fukushima Medical University

New type corona drug. Development based on antibody of recovered person. Fukushima Prefectural University of Medicine September 7, 19:03.

Fukushima Medical University held a press conference regarding a plan to develop a drug based on the "antibody" possessed by the person who recovered from the new coronavirus, and to obtain an antibody suitable for the drug, to those who experienced infection Called for donation of blood.

Currently, new coronavirus remedies such as those that have been confirmed to be effective as remedies for other diseases are used, but "neutralization" has the function of suppressing the growth of the virus in the blood of recovered humans. It is expected that if a drug is made based on a protein called "antibody", the effect will be high.

A research group led by Professor Motoki Takagi of Fukushima Medical University gave a press conference on the 7th, explaining the plans for drug development based on "neutralizing antibodies."

The research group is developing a technology called "immune monitor chip" that can detect many antibodies at once from a small amount of blood and other samples, and it is said that about 40 people have provided blood and analyzed it so far. I will.

In the future, the goal is to analyze the blood of 100 people to obtain a neutralizing antibody suitable for the drug, and we called on the people who recovered to cooperate.

The research group aims to replicate and mass-produce it if neutralizing antibodies are obtained, and it can be expected to be effective even for people who do not receive the vaccine.

Professor Takagi said, "It is difficult to treat all infected people with vaccines and existing drugs, so we would like to provide antibody drugs as a new treatment method."

What is the current state of therapeutic drug development for the new corona?

The drug currently being used to treat patients with the new coronavirus is an existing drug originally developed for the treatment of another disease, called ``drug repositioning'' to check if it is effective against the new coronavirus. As a result of research, it has come to be used.

For example, "lemdecibir" is a drug that has been developed as a treatment for Ebola hemorrhagic fever, and "dexamethasone" is a steroid drug used for the treatment of severe pneumonia. I found that.

Since existing drugs have some safety and usage precautions such as what side effects they may have, it is possible to shorten the time until they can be used rather than developing a therapeutic drug from the beginning. That's a big advantage.

On the other hand, from the beginning, development of drugs to suppress the growth of new coronavirus is being promoted in each country.

There are several methods for drug development, and one is to select from the list of compounds that are drug candidates, those that are expected to be effective against the new coronavirus, and to confirm their safety and efficacy.

Shionogi and the group of Hokkaido University have selected multiple compounds that are drug candidates and are conducting experiments using cells, aiming for clinical trials to actually administer to humans by March next year. I am.

In addition, the Kagoshima University group, together with pharmaceutical venture companies, selects substances that are drug candidates from the approximately 2000 kinds of compounds collected for the development of therapeutic agents for hepatitis C, and conducts animal experiments etc. to determine the safety and effectiveness. We are working on a project to confirm sex.

On the other hand, what is attracting attention is "antibody drugs," which are trying to identify and artificially create a "neutralizing antibody," a protein that suppresses the action of new coronaviruses, and to administer it as a therapeutic drug.

Antibodies are expected to be highly effective because they target only viruses, and in Japan, in addition to the Fukushima Medical University where the research was announced on the 7th, the Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, etc. Research group is conducting research such as experiments with cells, aiming to develop therapeutic drugs using neutralizing antibodies.

Meanwhile, in the United States, multiple companies are already conducting clinical trials for human administration.

Among them, a major pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, is developing an antibody drug candidate based on an antibody extracted from a patient recovered from infection with the new coronavirus in collaboration with a Canadian pharmaceutical company last month. Since then, we are starting the final stage of the study for residents of elderly facilities who are at risk of becoming seriously infected.

What is antibody drug?

Antibody drugs are drugs that attack and treat substances that cause disease, such as viruses and cancer cells, by artificially creating and administering "antibodies", proteins that are produced in the body to eliminate foreign substances. is.

It is a mechanism that prevents the growth of antibodies by binding to a marker appearing on a specific virus or cancer cell, etc. Since the 1990s, it is a therapeutic drug for various types of cancer as well as immune-related diseases such as rheumatism. Has been developed and several dozen types have been approved in Japan.

Research and development of antibody drugs aiming at the treatment of new coronavirus is also underway, and clinical trials have been started in the United States and other countries to verify the safety and efficacy of actual administration to humans.

Antibodies are expected to be highly effective because they have few side effects because they aim at viruses, and it is necessary to put them into practical use because they are developed based on antibodies that are known to suppress the growth of viruses. It is said that the period can be shortened compared to the conventional new drug development.

On the other hand, it costs a lot to artificially make antibodies, and the price of therapeutic drugs tends to be high.In addition, the antibodies become a bridge when the cells are infected with the virus, which worsens the symptoms. It has been pointed out that the phenomenon that causes it may occur.

Expert “Safety verification takes careful time”

Tsuneo Morishima, a visiting professor at Aichi Medical University, who is familiar with the treatment of infectious diseases regarding antibody drugs for new-type coronavirus, said, ``In the development of therapeutic drugs for new-type coronavirus, antibody drugs take longer to develop than conventional drugs. Not surprisingly, antibody drugs have already been developed and used for other infectious diseases, and are becoming the mainstream in countries such as the United States and China. It has been pointed out that some cases have deteriorated, and clinical trials and other processes for verifying safety should, like any other drug, be carefully performed over a certain period of time.”