We will always need therapies
Key therapeutics companies backed by EIB loans include Atriva, Immunic, Pluristem and AB Science. The companies’ COVID-19 products are designed to treat people after they are infected, especially if they become sick enough to go to the hospital.
Atriva’s lead drug candidate, ATR-002, aims to reduce the viral load of RNA viruses such as COVID-19 and influenza, and hinder the spread of severe respiratory infections. The drug, taken as a tablet, has shown promising results in pre-clinical trials. It could offer much-need help for people with coronavirus symptoms that require hospitalisation.
Atriva’s therapy treats two aspects of the coronavirus: it stops the virus from replicating and prevents an overreaction of the body’s immune system. “We believe this dual approach could be extremely effective,” says Olaf Althaus, chief financial officer at the company, which signed a €24 million EIB loan in October. “We are very optimistic about ATR-002’s potential to fight the pandemic.” Atriva’s goal is to develop a broad-spectrum antiviral drug that will also be effective against new mutations of COVID-19 or new RNA viruses that could lead to future outbreaks.
Another October loan went to Immunic, which is using its €24.5 million from the EIB to work on a similar therapy, IMU-838. This medicine, also in tablet form, has a broad spectrum of antiviral benefits. IMU-838 is undergoing a phase 2 trial in COVID-19 patients hospitalised with moderate illnesses. The medicine also is being tested on chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis.
“We had an idea in February, right when the pandemic reached a global scale, that our drug could work against COVID-19,” says Hella Kohlhof, a biologist in immunology and oncology who is the chief scientific officer at Immunic. “We knew from preclinical experiments that it already worked against hepatitis C, HIV and a few other viruses.”
COVID-19 started out as a supplementary project for Immunic, but it has grown into an urgent part of the company’s work. “We really felt we had a responsibility to do something,” Kohlhof says. “We already had the medication in place and we didn’t want to sit around and say, ‘We know it might work.’”
Immunic’s IMU-838 aims to reduce the severity of infections like COVID-19 in several ways. It prevents the replication of the virus. Then, it induces innate immunity and, finally, it may help the body’s immune system avoid overreacting to severe infections.
Immunic’s product works as a teacher instructing the body’s cells. “When cells in our body get infected with a virus and the virus wants to replicate, we have these very friendly cells in our body that say, ‘No problem I will switch on a new mechanism to support the virus’s need,’” Kohlhof says. “And then we end up with a huge amount of friendly cells doing this copying of new cells. The virus is hijacking the cells’ kindness. IMU-838 goes in and is able to block this mechanism by inhibiting the enzyme that supports the production of the friendly building blocks. It’s perfect, because IMU-838 blocks the infected cells, but not any other cells.”
AB Science signed a €15 million loan in November to advance the clinical development of its drug masitinib. The medicine, taken in a pill form, potentially has a dual anti-viral and anti-inflammatory action. It especially could help people suffering from life-threatening illnesses related to the coronavirus, including the so-called cytokine storm, in which the immune system overreacts to the infection. “AB Science’s research could have benefits for inflammatory diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, infectious diseases and cancers, so our support for the company might be expanded in the future,” says Yu Zhang, a manager in life sciences and biotechnology at the European Investment Bank.
The therapeutics companies hope their research will help a wide range of diseases. They say therapies will be needed for a long time, even if the vaccines are a success.
“First, not everyone will want to get vaccinated,” Atriva’s Althaus says. “Secondly, there will always be cases where the vaccines don’t work or can’t be used. After the airbag was introduced, ambulances were still needed.”
Therapeutic placenta cells
The Israeli-German company Pluristem, which signed a €50 million financing deal with the EIB in April, is taking a different route to a therapy. It is using placenta cells, which are the most potent cells in the human body, to treat severe infections.
Pluristem grows the cells from placentas in a 3D bioreactor that mimics the conditions of the human body. Injected into patients, the new cells help the body regenerate itself. The therapy may help patients suffering from complications of the coronavirus– pulmonary hypertension, lung fibrosis, or acute kidney and gastrointestinal injuries.
The placenta are collected after the delivery of healthy, full-term babies from women under 35 years old who undergo an elective caesarean section. “Those cells can then be used for the good of human kind,” says Auvo Kaikkonen, a senior life sciences specialist at the Bank.
Testing takes big role in the fight
Among the many lessons of the COVID-19 lockdowns has been the value of tracking and tracing the spread of the disease. Even before the pandemic, the European Investment Bank had backed research into advanced testing by Mobidiag, which operates in Finland and France, and Curetis, a German company whose platform is proving indispensable in the treatment of a large number of coronavirus patients, because it identifies the correct antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections.