A drug made from cow blood might cure coronavirus

[Chris Smith]

• Several coronavirus treatment options based on antibodies are currently in testing, and the latest addition comes from a company that used cow blood to grow potent antibodies capable of neutralizing the novel virus.
• SAB-185 is the name of the polyclonal antibody therapeutic that will be tested in clinical trials this summer.
• Harvested from the plasma of genetically altered cows, the drug candidate has powerful antibodies in much higher quantities than the most potent human antibodies retrieved from COVID-19 survivors' plasma.

Remdesivir and dexamethasone are so far the only drugs that were proven to work as COVID-19 therapies. The former is an experimental drug created to treat Ebola, and it turned out to speed up the recovery of patients with mild and moderate coronavirus infections. Dexamethasone is a cheap steroid that's widely available, but it's only useful in severe COVID-19 cases. Neither one offers the perfect cure for the novel coronavirus, but they're steps in the right direction for a disease that's not expected to disappear anytime soon. These drugs could buy doctors even more time so that research is completed for a few promising vaccine candidates that can prevent COVID-19 as well as brand new antibody drugs that have both the potential of helping with COVID-19 recovery and offering temporary immunity.

The latest antibody therapy to approach human trials comes from a company that has been growing powerful COVID-19 antibodies in the blood of cows.

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A drug made from cow blood might cure coronavirus originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 18 Jun 2020 at 10:52:43 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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