Avacta works on new therapy to tackle the virus

Wetherby-based Avacta was working on Affimers (its high-tech alternative to antibodies) to create a Covid-19 test life sciences giant Cytiva when it discovered that some of them can neutralise the virus.

Avacta is now seeking a big name partner to develop the project.

Avacta's chief executive Alastair Smith said: "We've found a bunch of our Affimers that could actually block the way the virus infects human cells.

"The virus has some spikes on the outside of it and those spikes are what it uses to latch on to human cells and get into the cells to infect them.

"We've found some Affimers that block the binding of the spike."

Avacta is hoping to develop a drug that would prevent the infection from spreading.

"Once someone is infected and getting ill, that infection continues because the virus multiplies inside the person," said Dr Smith.

"You would give the therapy to someone who already has the disease to stop it getting worse and to prevent any further virus getting into their cells."

He said the patient would still need to be treated if any respiratory problems had already developed.

"It could potentially stop people from getting ill because it would stop the virus from infecting the cells," he added.

"It has the potential to be a cure for the Covid-19 infection in that it can potentially stop the infectivity."

These are early days for the therapy although analysts believe it could be a major breakthrough.

Analyst Mark Brewer at FinnCap said: "The announcement that some of the Affimer reagents, recently generated for development of a Covid-19 antigen test, are also neutralising Affimers raises the potential for a therapy to prevent or treat SARS-CoV-2 infection as they block the way the virus infects human cells.

"Avacta indicated that it is seeking a partner to develop the project, and given the interest in this field (eg. GSK, AstraZeneca, Regeneron, Eli Lilly, amongst others) this is quite possible. It's too early perhaps to value, but once again it illustrates the broad utility of the Affimer platform."

Dr Smith said: "We've just got the data and it is now our task to talk to the big pharma companies.

"We've just begun to have the first of those conversations. In order for this to progress quickly, we would need a large partner to collaborate with, just because of the resources that are required to do something on the time scale that's needed.

"People like AstraZeneca have already announced that they are trying to find an antibody to do this."

Asked whether he was already talking to AstraZeneca, he said he couldn't say.

If a large partner is found, the therapy could be fast tracked.

"Realistically we are talking about at least a 12 month development timeline," said Dr Smith.

"That would be extremely rapid. It would require accelerating approvals and so on."

He said that GSK recently invested $250m to develop potential antibody treatments for Covid-19 by selecting antibodies from recovered patients.

“This is a very exciting development in the Covid-19 programme," he said.

"There is significant potential for a therapy that could help prevent infection and limit the progression of the disease, providing immediate benefit to patients.

"With a large and well-resourced partner, a neutralising Affimer therapy could potentially be developed more quickly than a vaccine and we believe that the likelihood of success would be high.

"The key thing now is to find a partner who has the resource and the appetite to do this."