A new study conducted at the Galveston National
Laboratory at The University of Texas Medical Branch at
Galveston (UTMB) has shown substantial benefit to combining monoclonal antibodies and the antiviral remdesivir against advanced Marburg virus. The study was
published today in Nature Communications.
“Marburg is a highly virulent disease in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola. In Africa, patients often arrive to a physician very ill. It was important to test whether a combination of therapies would work better with really sick people, said Tom Geisbert, a
professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at UTMB and the principal investigator for the study. “Our data suggests that this particular combination allowed for recovery when given at a very late
stage of the disease.”
Dr. Zachary A. Bornholdt, Senior Director of Antibody Discovery
and Research for Mapp Biopharmaceutical and a co-author on the study, said, “Often small molecules and antibodies are positioned to compete with each other for a single therapeutic indication. Here we see the benefit of pursuing both treatment strategies in tandem and ultimately finding synergy upon combining both
approaches together.”
Geisbert, Bornholdt and a large team at UTMB, Mapp
Biopharmaceuticals and Gilead have been developing monoclonal antibody (mAbs) therapies to treat extremely
dangerous viruses like Marburg and Ebola for several years. The treatments have proven to be highly
effective in laboratory studies and emergency use, particularly when delivered early in the disease
course.
In this study, using a rhesus model, treatment with monoclonal antibodies began six days post-infection, a critical point in disease progression. The combination therapy with
the antiviral remdesivir showed an 80 percent protection rate, indicating promise for the treatment of advanced
Marburg infections.
The study was supported by the Department of Health and Human
Services, National Institutes of Health grant U19AI142785 and UC7AI094660 for BSL-4 operations support of the
Galveston National Laboratory.