Global Plasma Leaders Collaborate to Accelerate Development of Potential COVID-19 Hyperimmune Therapy

The following is from a press release featuring various industry partners. See the press release here.

Partnership brings together world-leading plasma companies to focus on developing and delivering a hyperimmune immunoglobulin in the global fight against COVID-19
Biotest, BPL, LFB, and Octapharma have joined an alliance formed by CSL Behring and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited to develop a potential plasma-derived therapy for treating COVID-19. The alliance will begin immediately with the investigational development of one, unbranded anti-SARS-CoV-2 polyclonal hyperimmune immunoglobulin medicine with the potential to treat individuals with serious complications from COVID-19.
“Unprecedented times call for bold moves,” said Julie Kim, President of Plasma-Derived Therapies Business Unit, Takeda. “We collectively agree that by collaborating and bringing industry resources together, we could accelerate bringing a potential therapy to market as well as increase the potential supply. We invite companies and institutions focusing on plasma to support or join our alliance.”
“Leaders lead during uncertainty. There is no question that we are all experiencing the impact of COVID-19,” said Bill Mezzanotte, CSL Behring’s Executive Vice President and Head of Research and Development. “This effort aims to accelerate a reliable, scalable and sustainable option for caregivers to treat patients suffering from the impact of COVID-19. In addition to pooling industry resources, we will also collaborate with government and academic efforts as a single alliance whenever we can, including important activities like clinical trials. This will make it more efficient in these hectic times for these stakeholders as well.”
The collaboration will leverage leading-edge expertise and work that the companies already have underway. Experts from the alliance will begin collaborating across key aspects such as plasma collections, clinical trial development and manufacturing. Further companies and institutions may join the alliance as well.
Developing a hyperimmune will require plasma donation from many individuals who have fully recovered from COVID-19, and whose blood contains antibodies that can fight the novel coronavirus. Once collected, the “convalescent” plasma would then be transported to manufacturing facilities where it undergoes proprietary processing, including effective virus inactivation and removal processes, and then is purified into the product.
Individuals interested in donating plasma can visit this link to find the nearest licensed plasma collection center to their location.
About Biotest AG
Biotest is a provider of plasma proteins and biological drugs. The corporate offices are located in Dreieich (near Frankfurt), Germany. With a value-added chain that extends from pre-clinical and clinical development to worldwide sales, Biotest has specialized primarily in the areas of clinical immunology, hematology and intensive care medicine. Biotest develops and markets immunoglobulins, coagulation factors and albumin based on human blood plasma. Biotest owns and operates 22 plasma donation centers across Europe in Germany, Hungary and Czech Republic. Biotest has more than 1,800 employees worldwide. The ordinary and preference shares of Biotest AG are listed in the Prime Standard on the German stock exchange. For more information visit http://www.biotest.com.
About Bio Products Laboratory (BPL)
Recognising the power of plasma and with over 60 years heritage in the industry, BPL supplies high-quality plasma derived medicines to meet the needs of clinicians, patients and customers globally. Headquartered in the United Kingdom and with plasma collection centres across the United States, we are dedicated to producing medicines for the treatment of immune deficiencies, bleeding disorders and infectious diseases as well for critical care. BPL invests in the latest R&D, technology and manufacturing methods, and continuously adapts to ensure that we continue to serve all our stakeholders effectively. For more information visit http://www.bplgroup.com.
About CSL Behring
CSL Behring is a global biotherapeutics leader driven by its promise to save lives. Focused on serving patients’ needs by using the latest technologies, we develop and deliver innovative therapies that are used to treat coagulation disorders, primary immune deficiencies, hereditary angioedema, inherited respiratory disease, and neurological disorders. The company’s products are also used in cardiac surgery, burn treatment and to prevent hemolytic disease of the newborn. CSL Behring operates one of the world’s largest plasma collection networks, CSL Plasma. The parent company, CSL Limited, headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, employs more than 26,000 people, and delivers its life-saving therapies to people in more than 70 countries. For more information, visit www.cslbehring.com and for inspiring stories about the promise of biotechnology, visit Vita www.cslbehring.com/Vita.
About LFB
LFB is a bio-pharmaceutical group that develops, manufactures and markets plasma derived products and recombinant proteins for the treatment of patients with serious and often rare diseases. LFB was founded in 1994 in France and is among the leading European bio-pharmaceutical companies providing mainly hospital-based healthcare professionals, with blood-derived therapeutics with the vision to provide treatment options to patients in three major areas: immunology, haemostasis, and intensive care. LFB currently markets 15 products in more than 30 countries. www.groupe-lfb.com.
About Octapharma
Headquartered in Lachen, Switzerland, Octapharma is one of the largest human protein manufacturers in the world, developing and producing human proteins from human plasma and human cell lines. As a family-owned company, Octapharma believes in investing to make a difference in people’s lives and has been doing so since 1983; because it’s in our blood. At Octapharma, our passion drives us to provide new health solutions advancing human life. This is our vision. We thrive as an organisation in which people take ownership, have integrity, demonstrate grounded and confident leadership, drive sustainability, and are inspired by and eager to embrace entrepreneurship.
We employ more than 9,300 people worldwide to support the treatment of patients in 118 countries with products across three therapeutic areas: Hematology; Immunotherapy and Critical care.
Octapharma has seven R&D sites and six state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Austria, France, Germany, Mexico and Sweden, in addition to more than 140 plasma donation centres across Europe and the US. For more information visit: www.octapharma.com.
About Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited is a global, values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical leader headquartered in Japan, committed to bringing Better Health and a Brighter Future to patients by translating science into highly-innovative medicines. Takeda focuses its R&D efforts on four therapeutic areas: Oncology, Rare Diseases, Neuroscience, and Gastroenterology (GI). We also make targeted R&D investments in Plasma-Derived Therapies and Vaccines. We are focusing on developing highly innovative medicines that contribute to making a difference in people’s lives by advancing the frontier of new treatment options and leveraging our enhanced collaborative R&D engine and capabilities to create a robust, modality-diverse pipeline. Our employees are committed to improving quality of life for patients and to working with our partners in health care in approximately 80 countries. For more information, visit www.takeda.com.