Kedrion Biopharma has started the development of a plasma-derived therapy for treating the COVID-19 virus that could make it available to patients in as little as three to six months.
Alessandro Gringeri, Chief Medical and R&D Officer of Kedrion Biopharma, said the company, the world's fifth largest in plasma products, has been pouring investment and research resources into the effort, and expects to collect plasma from convalescent patients in the next 30 days. Kedrion is working in close collaboration with hospitals from some of the most hard-hit regions of Italy.
"What we will do is to use plasma from about 100 patients who have recovered from COVID-19 in order to develop a dosage that can be injected through either intravenous or intramuscular means. We will generate a plasma-derived immunoglobulin therapy that can be administered to either patients who are suffering from COVID-19 or to health care workers to provide temporary passive immunization," Gringeri said.
Dr. Gringeri said that a passive immunization like this might have a very high efficacy rate, as has been the case for treatments used for many other infectious diseases over the last half century. In China, where the virus first struck, hospitals have been administering pure plasma, whereas the Italian prototype is a plasma derivative which could be especially effective in treating patients in critical condition.
Subscribe to our e-Newsletters
Stay up to date with the latest news, articles, and events. Plus, get special offers
from American Pharmaceutical Review – all delivered right to your inbox! Sign up now!
"We can become the first mover because the process that we plan to use is based on smaller volumes of plasma, thanks to an innovative technological process - rather than the classical method, known in the industry as 'fractionation' - which normally would require thousands of liters to be utilized," said Dr. Gringeri. "Thanks to our cooperation with hospitals in both the North and South of Italy, we are going to be able to assess the efficacy of antibodies from convalescent plasma so as to better integrate them into the finished hyperimmune immunoglobulin product."