Biotech launches programme to help mitigate spread of viruses

Biotech company Orgenesis has launched an initiative to help mitigate the spread of viruses such as Covid-19, through the discovery and validation of neutralising human antibodies.

Orgenesis’ BioShield Program has been designed to increase the level of preparedness to fight against emerging outbreaks and help avoid a global pandemic. The programme will combine different technologies in preclinical stage to induce a response of the immune system within selected animal models, which could speed the discovery of neutralising antibodies.

The company will leverage its point-of-care anti-viral technologies to help develop the programme. This includes the exploration of alternative and breakthrough processes to induce neutralising antibody discovery and validation against targeted pathogens.

One component of the BioShield Program is Orgenesis’ cell-based vaccine approach, which utilises irradiated permissive cells that have the ability to activate an endogenous immune response. When infused into a humanised mouse model, these activated cells are designed to induce generation of neutralising antibodies.

If these technologies are successfully validated, Orgenesis believes it could represent a platform for the potential rapid identification and isolation of human neutralising antibodies to be tested as antiviral therapies against current and future emerging outbreaks

Vered Caplan, CEO of Orgenesis, commented: “When faced with new infectious diseases, there is a need for a rapid, affordable and effective solution to shut down the pathogen outbreak. By specifically leveraging Orgenesis’ POCare anti-viral platform, our objective with the BioShield Program is to provide a rapid and affordable solution to contain the spread of a viral pathogen or new emerging outbreaks.”

Frédéric Tonglet, general manager of Orgenesis (Belgium) added: “We are excited to lead this anti-viral platform development with first-in-class partners from the Belgian biotech ecosystem, including CTMA (Centre for Applied Molecular Technologies), a clinical research-oriented biotechnological platform of the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain). We look forward to providing further updates as this program evolves.”