
Californian biopharmaceutical company claims finding cure for SARS-CoV-2 - SergeAx
https://investors.sorrentotherapeutics.com/news-releases/news-release-details/sti-1499-potent-anti-sars-cov-2-antibody-demonstrates-ability
======
evanelias
Their stock went up 158% on Friday due to this press release. Seems overly
optimistic and speculative; this is a small company and investors have been
burned by them before, e.g.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/RobinHood/comments/89tnhb/biotech_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/RobinHood/comments/89tnhb/biotech_investments_gone_wrong_a_sorrento/)

~~~
pepy
perfect time to issue more stock and dilute shareholders at a higher
valuation... before the dump

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LatteLazy
So I’m not a biochemist or an MD or similar but this seems to say that they
think they found which pre existing human antibody targets a particular covid
19 protein. And since that antibody (like all antibodies) is really hard to
manufacture, someone now needs to develop a drug with a similar enough shape
to do the same job (while also being non toxic and stable in the body).

We’re already harvesting antibodies from people who produce them (people who
had covid and recovered) and using them to treat (or prevent) covid in others.
But that’s expensive so it’s strictly for those who can pay...

~~~
gedy
> is expected to be able to produce up to two hundred thousand doses per month
> and the Company intends to produce a million doses at risk while seeking FDA
> approval

"Is expected" might be the caveat, but does sound promising from a scale
perspective.

~~~
LatteLazy
Yeah, I wondered about that: is one dose enough for complete treatment 1
person or is it one "pill" and patients need X pills per day for Y days?

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hprotagonist
this is not a cure, but mAb therapies are a very promising approach for a
therapy, particularly because the basic idea already is known to work well,
there's been some encouraging preliminary work, and it looks like a good
target.

Sorrento are by no means the only people working on this: it's by far the most
promising approach we have to give us some breathing room to get a vaccine
out.

more mAb reading:

\-
[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/15/go...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/15/good-
news-on-the-human-immune-response-to-the-coronavirus)

\-
[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/27/mo...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/27/monoclonal-
antibodies-for-the-coronavirus)

\-
[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/06/de...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/06/details-
of-a-new-anti-coronovirus-neutralizing-antibody)

~~~
lbeltrame
Aren't mAb therapies very expensive, though? My experience in oncology tells
me that some mAb courses (bevacizumab, for example) have costs that go through
the roof.

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toss1
>"...expected to be able to produce up to two hundred thousand doses per month
"

When the cases are growing 25K/day in the US, so that many new cases in 8
days, it'll take some real testing & focus to start to catch up, but could
definitely help for front-line workers. Presumably, if it really works well,
could also use/build other production facilities, but it takes time.

~~~
vikramkr
Maybe also defense production act to swap other production lines to produce
either this antibody or one of the many other candidates also announced.
Although obviously I think the people taking humira or an anticancer antibody
or any of the other antibodues might have some thoughts on their drug not
being available so a covid drug can be made available...

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SydneyPumpkin
Misleading title. They found an inhibitor not a cure. The solution would more
akin to a nasal spray that prevents infection than a therapeutic avenue.

~~~
vikramkr
An Inhibitor is a cure, like convalescent plasma. You could maybe use these
for passive immunity, but this is clearly pitched as a therapy, not a
preventative, with the idea if stopping disease progression by stopping viral
replication. And I dont think antibodies can be administered nasally, they're
usually injected or intravenous

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yakshaving_jgt
I'm only a layman, but is not true that _in vitro_ results are hardly worth
getting excited about?

~~~
vikramkr
It depends on the in vitro experiment and the context. Something like "kills
cancer cell" is nearly meaningless (hence the famous XKCD comic). Here, this
is a well known mechanism of action (remember balto and the diphtheria
antitoxin and the Iditarod? This is fancy antitoxin kind of). And the in vitro
experiment is a test to show that it is a neutralizing antibody that binds to
the virus and stops entry. The in vitro model is the exact same mechanism of
entry the virus uses in the body. While there are still lots of unknowns and
unknown unknowns, and of course sorrento will have to run through extensive
(or perhaps less extensive under the circumstances) clinical testing before we
know for sure it works, this is more promising than your usual popsci
"strawberry shortcake kills cancer cells on vitro" experiment. We also have
some human data from convalescent sera I believe, amd this is essentially just
controlled, high quality convalescent sera that you dont need to extract from
humans, so even more validation there, which is why so many people are excited
about and pursuing and antibody approach (sorrento isn't the only one or the
first to develop a neutralizing antibody to covid)

------
kgin
Just seeing the incredible speed that potential treatments and vaccines have
arrived at testing and the accelerated pace they're being put through
testing... it makes you realize that in normal time we are operating nowhere
near the speed that we could be in tackling other diseases.

I wonder if this experience will change the pace of what people view as
possible, like the pharmaceutical version of the Roger Bannister Effect.
[https://hbr.org/2018/03/what-breaking-the-4-minute-mile-
taug...](https://hbr.org/2018/03/what-breaking-the-4-minute-mile-taught-us-
about-the-limits-of-conventional-thinking)

------
aazaa
Control-f on "cure". Nothing. Very misleading title.

~~~
vikramkr
It's a treatment that stops viral replication within four days. It might not
shut down cytokine storm, but if administered earlier, it stops replication
which would be a cure if it works. Biotechs tend to avoid the word cure early
on, you'll see the word treatment, because cure is a word that's hard to
define and often meaningless or with blurry boundaries.

~~~
aazaa
> Among the antibodies showing neutralizing activity, one antibody stood out
> for its ability to completely block SARS-CoV-2 infection of healthy cells in
> the experiments. STI-1499 completely neutralized the virus infectivity at a
> very low antibody dose, making it a prime candidate for further testing and
> development. Initial biochemical and biophysical analyses also indicate
> STI-1499 is a potentially strong antibody drug candidate.

[https://investors.sorrentotherapeutics.com/node/11241/pdf](https://investors.sorrentotherapeutics.com/node/11241/pdf)

This is as far from a "cure" or "treatment" as the Wright Brothers were from
Apollo 11. In vitro results are a necessary, but insufficient path along the
trajectory of developing a drug.

Heck, this press release doesn't even mention _in vivo_ experiments.
Everything is on cells. Drug development is absolutely littered with the
corpses of promising in vitro studies.

Calling the experiments have have been run anything other than "preliminary
work" is misleading.

