Neutralizing mAbs against SARS-CoV-2 are widely considered to be promising candidates for COVID-19treatment and prevention. Encouraging results for COVID-19 antibody treatment have emerged from preclinical research and from initial clinical trials.

Not only are innovative therapies such as SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies urgently needed for immediate pandemic response, they will likely also continue to be needed even after an effective vaccine is available. mAbs have the potential to play an important complementary role to COVID-19 vaccines both for treatment and potentially for prevention, especially for those individuals who, due to age or medical conditions, may not benefit from vaccination. Given that many experts speculate that COVID-19 will become an endemic, or permanently circulating, disease, and given the severity of symptoms in a significant proportion of people affected, effective therapies will be necessary to treat those who remain unvaccinated or whom vaccination does not protect.

Scientists at IAVI’s Neutralizing Antibody Center (NAC) based at Scripps Research, along with fellow immunologists at Scripps Research, were part of ateam that identifed antibodies from the blood of recovered COVID-19 patients that are capable ofpotently neutralizing SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Animals that received theseneutralizing antibodies were protected against disease after challenge with SARS-CoV-2. The results werepublished in Science (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/15/science.abc7520)

in June 2020. The portfolio of mAbs identifed by IAVI and Scripps Research scientists and their partners provides the foundation for a comprehensive program with potential application to COVID-19 treatment and prevention as well as to other corona viruses that may arise or re-emerge in the future.