GSK Collaborates with Vir Biotechnology to Find Coronavirus Solutions

GlaxoSmithKline plc (London, UK) and Vir Biotechnology, Inc. (San Francisco, CA, USA) have entered into a collaboration to research and develop solutions for coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The collaboration will use Vir’s proprietary monoclonal antibody platform technology to accelerate existing and identify new anti-viral antibodies that could be used as therapeutic or preventative options to help address the current COVID-19 pandemic and future outbreaks. The companies will leverage GSK’s expertise in functional genomics and combine their capabilities in CRISPR screening and artificial intelligence to identify anti-coronavirus compounds that target cellular host genes. They will also apply their combined expertise to research SARS-CoV-2 and other coronavirus vaccines. GSK has also entered into a vaccine development agreement with China’s Xiamen Innovax Biotech which is developing a COVID-19 XWG-03 vaccine candidate technology based on a series of truncated S (spike) proteins which will be screened during the pre-clinical testing and a lead candidate will be determined by immunogenicity data. GSK will provide Innovax with its pandemic adjuvant system for preclinical evaluation of the vaccine.