The International Society on Thrombosis and Homeostasis (ISTH) annual Congress is currently underway in Montreal, June 24 – 28, and Aegros is there to present two research papers to the assembled practitioners and experts.
Recently Aegros shared with you the findings of its first paper into Plasma Fractionation by HaemaFrac® Technology – A Bioprocessing Innovation, and now shares with you details of the second presentation to be made at ISTH; titled Hyper-immunoglobulin- Covimmune™, provide a broader coverage against diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The background to this research paper outlines that SARS-CoV-2 is an elusive virus and that the treatments developed for one strain of the virus decline in effectiveness against future strains. In the context of Covid-19 this means that the monoclonal antibodies developed against the original strain have dwindled in effectiveness, to the point of no medical benefit, as the virus has evolved. By comparison, polyclonal convalescent plasma provides the best alternative to monoclonal antibodies by passing on passive immunity to patients with Covid-19, to reduce the severity of the disease and lower mortality rates.
Taking the passive immunity benefits of convalescent plasma even further, Aegros’ HaemaFrac® was used to manufacture a clinical grade hyperimmune from this source material.
While this hyperimmune product undergoes clinical trial, analysis of the viral neutralization efficacy has been performed and compared to the effectiveness of convalescent plasma in protecting against various Covid-19 variants including Ancestral Wuhan, Delta, and two strains of Omicron.
The analysis was performed by collaboration partners, Kirby Institute and Aergos’ Research & Development team, and authors of the paper to be presented at ISTH include Stuart Turville and Tony Kelleher from Kirby Institute and Chrys Maoudis, Leslie John Forster, Steve Mahler and Hari Nair from Aegros.
The analysis shows that HaemaFrac® processing of the convalescent plasma resulted in a nine-fold increase of anti-spike IgG. The neutralisation potency of the hyperimmune product was enriched against the Ancestral Wuhan and Delta strains, and retained against Omicron variants BA.1 and BA.5.
The analysis demonstrates HaemaFrac® processing of a hyperimmune against Covid-19 from convalescent plasma retains the benefit of IgG subclass distribution present in the source material. This provides the hyperimmune against Covid-19 product a significant advantage in viral neutralization while also minimizing viral escape, compared to monoclonal antibodies.
Aegros Chief Medical Officer, Dr Leon Rosen will be on hand at ISTH to showcase the findings of this, and other Aegros papers, to attendees at ISTH 2023.
Aegros looks forward to sharing our findings at ISTH 2023 with our fellow delegates and researchers, and also to learning from the research papers presented by our colleagues in the industry.