CSL Behring And SAB Explore Polyclonal Antibodies For COVID-19

CSL Behring, the biotech arm of Australia’s CSL Ltd., the multinational blood products company, is to collaborate with US biotech SAB Biotherapeutics Inc. on the development of SAB-185, a polyclonal human antibody product targeted to COVID-19 and manufactured without human plasma donations from recovered patients, adding another avenue of research to CSL’s activities against the infection.

SAB is one of the few companies with experience in developing coronavirus therapeutics, having completed a Phase I study with SAB-301, a potential treatment for MERS-CoV. And the research effort will complement the antibody-related moves started by CSL and other companies, including South Korea’s GC Pharma, Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and Switzerland’s Octapharma AG, involving the isolation of hyperimmune globulins from COVID-19 recovering patients