Fusion Antibodies and Queen’s University Belfast have been awarded a ￡453,000 grant from Invest Northern Ireland to further expand their COVID-19 targeted research and development efforts. Within the framework of their Northern Ireland Coronavirus Antibody Development Alliance (NICADA), the two organizations will use the funds to accelerate the discovery of novel therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies with validated anti-infective properties against COVID-19.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted rising demand for select antibodies, specifically engineered to neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 virus, while also facilitating diagnostic testing," said Dr Paul Kerr, CEO at Fusion Antibodies. "Since the early stages of the pandemic, Fusion Antibodies has been committed to discovering new therapeutic and diagnostic approaches to help in the fight against this growing threat. The new funding is set to further strengthen NICADA, enabling us to provide the global biopharmaceutical and clinical diagnostics communities with the necessary tools they need to mount an effective COVID-19 response."

Building on strong scientific expertise and application knowhow, Fusion Antibodies and Queen’s University Belfast will be using the Invest Northern Ireland grant to pioneer a new commercially-competitive antibody development platform. The novel technology will be capable of simultaneously creating COVID-19 antibodies of unparalleled quality: humanized, affinity- and selectivity-matured, stability- and developability-optimized. These state-of-the-art antibodies will have a SARS-CoV-2 virus neutralization ability, while also aiding diagnostic testing efforts.

"At NICADA, we envisage a breakthrough antibody drug therapy targeting SARS-CoV-2 directly," said Ultan Power, Professor of Molecular Virology at The Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, Queen’s University Belfast. "The Invest Northern Ireland grant will enable us to exploit our SARS-CoV-2 virology expertise to help generate a new antibody development platform that will allow us to realize this vision, helping us to discover new drug targets to combat the devastating COVID-19 disease."

In anticipation of the new funding, Fusion Antibodies has already designed and expressed a panel of unique protein antigens for use in discovery platforms in the search for a neutralizing therapeutic antibody against SARS-CoV-2. The panel of proteins have shown excellent profiles in terms of activity and scalability.