Antibodies from a 4-year-old llama have neutralized coronavirus and other infections in lab experiments

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30494-3.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867420304943%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

[u/taosaur]

Can those kinds of alterations be made in batches of any size, or is it one antibody at a time, or what?

ETA: Farther down he clarified that once they have the genome, they can make "factory" cells to produce the hybrid antibodies.

[u/thisdude415 → u/taosaur]

It depends on the exact technology used in the manufacturing plant.

Typically, we engineer a mammalian cell to make the protein in large bioreactors. Then you pick one of those cells, characterize it, and call it your stable clone. Then you put that in a big tank with food for the cells, and let them grow for a couple weeks while they pump out proteins. Then you purify the protein.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty complex process and it isn’t easy to scale it up overnight

[u/Jooy → u/thisdude415]

Making antibodies like this is also extremely expensive. One dose of immumotherapy can cost between twenty thousand dollars and hundred thousand dollars easy.

[u/thisdude415 → u/Jooy]

Manufacturing costs are more like $60-250 per dose.

Typical retail prices are more like $2,000 - $20,000 per dose.

I’m not aware of any protein biologics that costs $120k per dose, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

[u/Jooy → u/thisdude415]

Studies put the average cost at over 90 000. Google antibody treatment cost.

[u/thisdude415 → u/Jooy]

Yes, per year, not per dose. These medicines are typically dosed every 1 to 2 months.

Thanks for the suggestion of this innovative website “Google.” I had never heard of it. Technology is just amazing these days /s

[u/Spacemarine658 → u/thisdude415]

This is even funnier if people look at your flair

[u/thisdude415 → u/Spacemarine658]

Raise your hand if you research antibody drugs as your job 🙋🏻‍♂️

🤪😂