As an outbreak of Ebola in central Africa continues to worsen, the federal government has tapped a little-known biotech in San Diego to provide doses of an experimental antibody that may be used to treat the deadly virus.
The biotech, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, “has shipped doses for potential use in high-risk individuals,” a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told Fierce, “as part of coordinated preparedness efforts.”
The antibody was originally developed in collaboration with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for Sudan virus, a species of ebolavirus separate from the Bundibugyo species that is causing the current epidemic. But the treatment has shown potential in laboratory studies to be effective against Bundibugyo too, the spokesperson said.
The team-up between Mapp and the federal government was first reported by Bloomberg News.
Mapp lists an antibody therapy for Sudan virus, MBP134, on its pipeline.
Reached for comment by Fierce, Mapp’s co-founder and president Larry Zeitlin, Ph.D., said the company will share more information in the near future.
Zeitlin also pointed Fierce to two publications on MBP134 outlining the antibody cocktail’s discovery and preclinical effectiveness. The two antibodies that make up MBP134 were isolated from a survivor of the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the worst epidemic of the disease ever recorded. MBP134 then proved capable of protecting ferrets and rhesus macaques from three ebolaviruses, including Bundibugyo.
Any potential use of the treatment would be coordinated by the FDA, the Department of State and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response in a “whole-of-government approach,” the HHS spokesperson said.
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Because the antibody is not an approved product, additional details about its supply, production and procurement process are not being provided, according to the spokesperson.
This isn’t the first time that Mapp has been thrust into the spotlight due to Ebola. In 2014, at the time of the disease’s worst epidemic, experimental antibodies from the biotech were used to treat two Americans infected with the virus.
The fact that the treatment, called ZMapp, was given to a pair white American aid workers in Africa raised questions among some infectious disease experts about how to prioritize access to the experimental med, compounded by the controversial history of drug testing on the continent, The New York Times reported at the time.
Mapp lists its ZMapp program as discontinued on its website, where it points out that the drug was composed of three humanized monoclonal antibodies manufactured in tobacco plants. The company notes as well that the cocktail was the product of a collaboration between itself and several other companies, plus the U.S. government and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
