EMERGENT BIOSOLUTIONS
In October, the company announced the start of a Phase 3 clinical trial to evaluate the effects of COVID-Human Immune Globulin (COVID-HIG) — a product derived from the plasma of people who have developed antibodies to fight the virus.
(COVID-HIG) — a product derived from the plasma of people who have developed antibodies to fight the virus. “We are drawing from decades of experience developing treatments on our well-established hyperimmune platform to address this serious public health threat,” Saward said in a press release. While the HIG version is made from the plasma of human donors, the company is also developing COVID- Equine Immune Globulin (COVID-EIG), using plasma from horses who have been inoculated to stimulate antibody development. The company plans to assess their value on two fronts — as treatments for severely ill patients and as potential protection for frontline health-care workers and military personnel. The manufacturing process was developed by Dr. Bruce Chown and Dr. Jack Bowman in the 1960s. Initially, it was used to create a prenatal blood product called WinRHO — the Win is for Winnipeg — that is given to pregnant women to safeguard their babies. WinRHO treats potentially fatal hemolytic disease of the newborn, which occurs when mothers with Rh-negative blood carry Rh-positive babies. Chown and Bowman co-founded a laboratory that
eventually became biopharmaceutical company Cangene. Six years ago, Cangene was acquired by Maryland-based Emergent BioSolutions in a win-win deal. Emergent gained access to the Winnipeg company’s talent and technology, and it made substantial investments to increase the local facility’s manufacturing capacity, improve its infrastructure and expand its workforce from about 250 to more than 350 employees. The Winnipeg facility, located at the University of Manitoba’s Smartpark, has capabilities from research and development through to commercial manufacturing. Given that a flu pandemic is a potential threat, the company has been working on a plasma-derived therapy that would target multiple strains of flu virus, as well as a rapid-response unit that could collect plasma and use it to create therapeutics on-site during outbreaks of ebola and other diseases. On the vaccine front, Emergent BioSolutions’ Maryland facilities are collaborating with Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Novavax, and Vaxart to develop and manufacture contenders as part of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed. ■
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