- COR-101 decreased SARS-CoV-2 virus load in the lung by more than 99%
- COR-101 induced recovery after 2 days, compared to 7 days untreated
CORAT Therapeutics GmbH today reports the successful conclusion of hamster disease model tests of their lead candidate COR-101 against COVID-19. It induced recovery of SARS-CoV-2 infected hamsters within two days. In contrast, without treatment, the hamsters only started to reach the same health status after a full week. Treatment with COR-101 substantially reduced the weight loss after infection, which indicates the general health state. But since the main life-threatening effects of the virus are happening in the lung, the virus titer was measured directly in this organ which mainly contributes to lethality of SARS-CoV-2.
We are especially happy to report that COR-101 drastically reduced the amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the lung. Already after three days, an average of less than 1 % of the virus titer of the untreated control group could be detected after treatment with COR-101. This confirms the excellent neutralizing capability that we already measured in the laboratory. It demonstrates that COR-101 efficiently neutralizes the virus in a living organism and prevents disease progression. Further, in contrast to plasma therapy and the currently emergency approved antibodies in the US, our recombinant antibody is especially designed not to induce overshooting immune responses which contribute to the lethality in the lung. We achieved this by carefully removing the respective signals from the molecule before starting its production
Dr. Andreas Herrmann, CEO of CORAT Therapeutics
CORAT Therapeutics currently intensively works to get regulatory approval for the start of the first-in-man studies next month. In contrast to all vaccine studies so far, these clinical studies will include COVID-19 patients from the start, since the treatment aims to directly protect infected patients. Therefore, preliminary efficacy is chosen as secondary endpoint of the study. It is also expected that this effect can be clinically demonstrated much quicker than in the vaccine studies.
COR-101 is a fully human monoclonal IgG antibody that binds a very broad area of the virus surface. Its mode of action recently has been discovered by solving the atomic structure of its interaction with SARS-CoV-2. The results showed that it covers a much larger surface than other antibodies currently in development. “This also may explain why COR-101 is more resistant to mutations of the virus surface than other antibodies. It is capable to neutralize even a virus version with seven mutations in the receptor binding region of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein”, comments Dr. Herrmann.
Read the press release with the full story: (english) – (german)
