IBT Receives Phase II STTR from NIAID for development of Bispecific Antibodies against multiple Ebolaviruses

July 2017

A Novel Paradigm for Fighting Filovirus Infections

IBT and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (EINSTEIN) receive a collaborative STTR grant from NIH, entitled Broadly Protective Bispecific Antibodies for Treatment of Ebola Virus Disease.

A major challenge in the fight against filovirus infections is the fact that the nature of epidemics cannot be predicted.  Beside the Zaire strain of Ebolavirus other ebolaviruses such as Sudan virus, Bundibugyo virus as well as the more distant relative Marburg virus have caused highly lethal outbreaks.  As the nature of future ebolavirus disease outbreaks cannot be predicted, development of broadly protective immunotherapeutics for ebolaviruses is urgently needed.

Under the phase I of this STTR, IBT worked with Dr. Jon Lai and Dr. Kartik Chandran at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) to generate a series of novel bispecific antibodies that target multiple broadly neutralizing epitopes in filovirus glycoprotein. This work led to a lead candidate that provided protection against Ebola and Sudan viruses and neutralization against all ebolaviruses (Published in Science, 2016; PMID:27608667)  Under the Phase II STTR the collaborating teams along with Dr. John Dye’s team at USAMRIID will manufacture this bispecific antibody in CHO cells and evaluate its efficacy in nonhuman primates.